


Precision Work

by refectory



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU where Rin survives and becomes Isobu's jinchuuriki, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Rin Mentors Haku, Zabuza and Rin Share Custody of Haku
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2018-12-26 19:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/refectory/pseuds/refectory
Summary: Nohara Rin survives, kidnaps a child, gains a brother or two, ends the reign of a tyrant, and saves the world a little.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Non-explicit references to death, mild description of fatal wounds (stomach, heart), psychological torture, purple prose.

**Precision Work**

—  **V** —

* * *

Nohara Rin was a medic.

It was a career that had a few connotations attached to it, a lot of those negative. Most people didn't think much of medics. Apparently, they were  _soft_ and  _squishy._ Rin had never thought so. The proof of them being anything  _but_ soft was evident in the way they handled death _._

You see, for most shinobi their first death was on the field.  _Rin's_ first death was within village walls.

She was a genin. She had only just committed to becoming a medic nin. It was her third day in the hospital. She'd graduated a week ago and was as fresh as one could be: the greenest leaf in the tree. The other doctors treated her as their caffeine-slash-paperwork gopher.

Basically, she did grunt work.

While not the most fulfilling work, it  _was work_ , and Rin had long since made her peace with the reality of her situations, both as a shinobi and as a budding doctor.

Then a jōnin had crashed in through the doors and into her arms. Stomach wound. 18cm lengthwise, deep enough to expose organs. Face was jaundice. Hands were cold and clammy. He was bleeding out; all Rin could do was lay him on the nearest table and hold the torn skin together with her hands until a  _real_ medic could handle it.

Her first real duty?  _Keep him alive._

She didn't succeed.

She watched as the shinobi was wheeled past her to the morgue, her hands covered in blood, which she kept smearing on her clothes (pristine colors, bright colors, she hadn't known better at the time.) She couldn't remember ever crying so hard. A nurse had grabbed Rin's face in her hands and asked, "Is this your first time losing a patient?"

Through her tears she'd managed a pathetic, "What?"

"Is this your first time losing a patient?" The nurse repeated. Rin's hands trembled. She thought, 'Lose? Did I lose something?' The answer came easily.  _Yes. Yes, of course I did._ "Nohara, answer the question. Is this your first tim—"

"Yes," Rin whispered, "Yes, this is my first—oh, Sage—he's dead, he's dead, I couldn't help him he's dea—"

"What training do you have?" The nurse waited for an answer. Rin searched for one and found her memories too slippery to observe. Clarity of thought escaped her. 'What training,' the nurse had asked. Rin's tongue was tied into knots. What training indeed?

"Do you know the protocols for stomach wounds? For chakra exhaustion? Blood loss? Do you know how to disinfect lacerations? What about sutures, do you know the procedure for them? What anaesthetic would you use—local, general, regional? In the event of cardiac arrest, what would your first plan of action be?"

The nurse carried on like this: sprouting out questions to which Rin had no answers for.

She found that the slippery memories hadn't been from shock. It had been, plainly, because the memories had not  _been there_. She had no training which could qualify her to handle a situation like that. What training she did have was simple: reduce blood loss, minimize stress, keep the casualty awake, put pressure on the wound, wait for experienced help, don't promise anything.

And that was exactly what she had done.

The iron band compressing her ribs loosened. Suddenly, breaths came easier.

Rin went through her training.

' _Reduce blood loss, minimize stress, keep the casualty awake, put pressure on the wound, wait for experienced help, don't promise anything.'_

And in the event of cardiac arrest?

' _I … I don't know. I'm not prepared for that.'_

Rin wasn't prepared for any of it. She couldn't have done anything.

It was offensive—how much of a relief weakness could be. The lack of accountability was a weight off her shoulders. The nurse released her tight grip on Rin's cheeks. She reached into her deep pockets and produced a packaged antiseptic wipe, which she tore open and handed to Rin. The genin silently cleaned her hands, getting under the nails, and sat in silence, gathering her bearings.

The nurse allowed her a short amount of time. At least, until Rin's hands were mostly cleaned. Then she said, "You can't help everyone, kid. Sometimes, even the best medics can't outsmart the shinigami. Wanna know something?" Rin looked up. Her savior had dark, flat brown eyes like sinkholes. To be the target of them was as terrifying as it was transfixing, "That jōnin wasn't surviving a stomach wound like that. There was nothing anyone could do to help him, except to keep him calm until death took him. You did that."

Rin nodded slowly. "And that's all I could do,"

"And that's all you could do,"

It made it easier: breathing.

She closed her eyes.

(Rin was never quite satisfied with  _easier._ )

"But … that's not my limit? Is it?" Rin dug her nails into her palms until the shock made way for the pain. She was a shinobi too, she knew how to focus past pain. "I can be better. I can—I can learn the protocols and procedures for a stomach wound. I can learn the difference between local, general and regional anaesthetic. I can  _be better_."

The nurse was smiling as if she'd said the right answer. "Anyone can say it. It takes hard work to prove it."

Rin gritted her teeth. "I'm not afraid of hard work," She promised, and she meant it with every fibre of her being—meant it more than she'd ever meant anything in her life. It was more than being a shinobi. It was bigger than killing, than flashy ninjutsu or overpowered taijutsu. It was more important than  _everything_ Rin had ever done or promised before that moment.

A medic's first death was like a broken bone. Afterwards, the person was either never the same, off-balance and fractured for the rest of their lives, or they suffered a brief period of excruciating pain before coming back stronger than ever.

Rin was determined to be the latter.

* * *

She grew to be quite good at it. With Obito as a constantly warmth at her side, a harbour when the cycle of life and death wore at her, it was easy to keep moving forward. She and Obito were never considered prodigies and probably never would be: the time for that title was past. What they had is what they fought for.

Obito didn't let her falter, and so, Rin didn't.

She learned a lot, and thanks to the war, she learned it quickly. On the frontlines with her S-ranked sensei, a child genius teammate and her Uchiha best friend, she was not with them in the thick of it.

The only knife she would use to draw blood would be a scalpel, and she used it to save lives. She brought shinobi back from the brink of death. She reattached limbs, she saved people from career-ending disabilities, she brought back hope to the sole survivors of entire squadrons.

Rin walked into the scarred heart of war and she  _healed_ it.

But not always.

Rule the first:  _You can't save anyone._

Some things not even shinobi could come back from. Some wounds couldn't be healed. Sometimes, the best Rin could do for a person was a shock of chakra at a pressure point to put them into a permanent, painless sleep.

She got good at that, too.

Rin knew death. She knew it well. As a medic, Rin knew it better than  _anyone_ , even her amazing sensei. She knew when she could save someone from it and she knew when it was unavoidable. She had accepted it, because there was no other option: either she did, or she quit.

And Rin—Rin was a  _good. medic._ She  _wasn't_ quitting.

Being a medic wasn't about—power, or natural talent, or kekkei genkai, or genius, or any of that stuff. It was determination. It was awareness, knowing your limits, knowing  _others_  limits. Above all else, it was  _precision_.

And Rin was the  _best_ at that.

* * *

When Obito was crushed under those rocks, Rin  _knew_.

' _It would take a miracle to save you.'_

Medics were not capable of those. It was one of the first things she was taught, right after " _You can't always help"_ and " _Sometimes, mercy kills are the only way to ensure we do no harm."_ It had never been such a bitter truth to swallow. Rin sobbed her heart out and thought, for the first time since she was nine, that she never wanted to heal someone again.

What good was it? How did it help? Her best friend was  _dead_  and a part of Rin, the warmest, gentlest part of her, the part of her that carried graphic bandages in her pockets, died with him.

Even Kakashi was shaken it,  _changed_ in a way Rin, in all her fascination and optimistic belief that he  _could_ be kinder, didn't see coming. It was clear that despite the fatal blows Kakashi dealt daily, he hadn't ever expected one so close to home.

And wasn't that ironic, considering his past?

(Rin cried for days in the darkness of her apartment. Kakashi had been right beside her the entire time, and that's why, that's why she's so sorry—he shouldn't be forced to do this—he  _held her hand_ , and she has  _no right_ —)

When the Kiri nin kidnapped her, when they put a  _demon_ inside of her, Rin was, first and foremost,  _furious_ at the sheer audacity of it. The rage had burned inside of her like a physical thing and more than she wanted to be free of them, Rin wanted them to pay.

Wasn't the war over? Hadn't enough people died for this treaty? Would these shinobi  _spit_ on the graves of all who had died—on  _Obito's_ grave—by inciting another war?

How  _could_ they?

Then the seal happened. It poisoned her heart against Konoha, there was nothing she could do short of destroying it completely that could save her home. She tried to walk away, wished desperately that her feet would take her anywhere else, but the seal had a chain around her will. Her body didn't belong to her.

Inside, the beast wailed.

Rin knew what wounds people could not survive. What wounds medics could not heal. The seal on her heart was one of them.

No heart at all was another one.

( _One thousand chirping birds_ —  _she isn't the target, she isn't the target, she isn't the target_ —  _her heart is on_ fire  _the demon wants release, it wants to be free,_ so does she, she wants the same thing, can't you see? —  _Kakashi, she's so sorry, she's so sorry, how can he ever be okay after this_ —  _didn't she promise him that things would be okay?_

_How could she?_

—  _Obito, could you ever forgive me for_ —)

It was the only way.

"Ka...ka...shi…"

There was  _no other option._

* * *

He touched her shoulder so  _gently_ before she fell.

* * *

Rin knew what the human body could and could not survive. She knew precision. She knew death. She knew what it meant to give up, to  _let go_ , and she was not scared of whatever came after. It was the natural course of all things living.

Rin was not afraid. She was sorry—for Kakashi, for Minato-sensei, for Kushina-nee—but she was not afraid.

(She wanted so  _badly_ to see Obito again—)

What Rin  _hadn't_ been taught was this:

Jinchuuriki were the most durable creatures on earth. Their healing factor was legendary, and was rumoured to be able to regrow entire limbs in mere minutes. Jinchuuriki were notoriously hard to kill that way. Rin had dismissed it as myth. Without knowing a jinchuuriki herself, there was no way to be sure.

She shouldn't have been so docile.

If she hadn't assumed that she knew everything there was to know about human limitations, maybe Rin would have stumbled upon the particular myth detailing how jinchuuriki could regrow vital organs.

It would have saved her a lot of trouble.

* * *

" _It's dead!"_

" _It killed itself!"_

" _Shit … retrieve the corpse! The vessel still has use!"_

Her heart was gone. Rin should have been dead (of course she should have been,  _she didn't have a heart_ ) but there was more to Rin now.

Namely, a three-tailed chakra demon.

As she collapsed and the Kiri nin swarmed her corpse, a thick, bubbling crimson chakra surrounded her body. It released a mist which dispersed across the field. The Kiri nin saw her immobile on the floor, dead as a doornail, no signs of activity at all.

It was an illusion. That was the Sanbi's specialty, wasn't it? Tricks? Genjutsu? Self-preservation?

" _Rin… I will… create a world where you're still alive…"_

It wasn't her. That was a good thing, because if Rin had seen Obito in that moment, the world would have been a changed place. She would have stayed. She wouldn't have taken the blow to the heart in the first place. Obito wouldn't have gotten ideas of world domination in his head. The world, probably, would have been a better place if she had stayed.

But Rin, Obito and Kakashi were teenagers. Barely fourteen. They may have thought that they knew everything, but as Rin's regrown heart could attest, they really,  _really_ didn't.

So, Obito massacred the Kiri shinobi and cradled what he believed was Rin's body.

Meanwhile, the Sanbi had already carted her body halfway across the country. The chakra was potent, malicious, and it enhanced Rin's capabilities in way they definitely weren't meant to be. The strain was  _too_ much, and in the cold depths of her mind Rin begged for it to stop. The Sanbi didn't hear her, or didn't listen, or either one of them. The Sanbi had a mission.

_Freedom._

And freedom could not be attained if his vessel died and took him with her.

She needed to heal and survive. If the human no longer had the will to remain in the world of the living, Sanbi would force her to. Jinchuuriki were more than just themselves and their weak human flesh, and the Tailed Beasts were legendary in their power, their ability to beat impossible odds.

The Sanbi fled to the nearest body of salt water, dropped himself into the lake until he sunk, sunk, sunk to the bottom, and tore his true form free from his mortal vessel.

The Sanbi breathed a sigh of relief from the floor of the lake and thought, ' _Finally.'_

' _Finally, Father, I am free.'_

Rin fell into a sleep. Some sort of … Tailed Beast induced healing coma? The Sanbi kept her mind preoccupied with illusions, and as much as she wished she could say otherwise, the illusions were not kind.

The Sanbi showed her nightmares, her own worst fears come to life: she relived Obito's death, over and over and over. She saw Kakashi fall with Obito and could do nothing to help them. She was with her kidnappers and her teammates did not come for her. She saw Minato-sensei turning away from her, call her "useless" and "fodder". She saw her parents at her empty-casket funeral, she saw Kakashi, shunned for the perceived assassination of his own teammate.

Most of all, she saw herself that night, escorted to Konoha by a well-meaning Kakashi, and she saw the Kiri nin's plan succeed. The seal activated and she unleashed the Sanbi on her home. She killed—oh, Sage, she killed so  _many_ people, so many families—women, children, it didn't matter, she crushed them all, and the worst part was that there was no remorse in it. Everyone died. These people were just dying a little earlier.

The Sanbi had turned her own medic values against her.

Rin was twisted by the experience. It wasn't her fault, being told that you were useless and in the way and guaranteed to hurt everyone you had ever loved was bound to do  _something_ to her psyche. It was a relentless attack and this time, Kakashi thought she was dead and Obito  _was_  dead. Unlike Kannabi Bridge, no one was saving Rin this time.

At least … at least no one would be hurt because of her.

At least there was that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin makes an unlikely friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: The development of a potential unhealthy codependent relationship. It's not a malicious relationship but still, better to be safe...

**Precision Work**

—  **V** —

* * *

It would have been easier to remain stuck in her personal hell and wallow there. It would have been simpler to remain a husk as the Sanbi used her body as a conduit for his own so he could swim around like he was some normal, average turtle and not a demon. Rin almost did, so lost in her mind was she.

It was a vision of Obito, young, as she'd known and loved him, laughing at her from the doorway of her old room, that saved her from that fate.

She'd been surrounded by medical scrolls. Her fingers were covered in ink and she'd been crying from stress, and in wiping away her tears she'd smeared the ink around her eyes, which was why Obito had been laughing.

Rin hadn't appreciated it at the time, not the way she did now. " _Stop laughing, Obito-kun! It's not funny!"_

" _It's a little bit funny, Rin-chan. You can't_ — _haha_ — _you can't really see yourself right now. You'd be laughing as well!"_

" _Well, I'm not laughing now! So stop it!"_

" _What's wrong, anyway? Did someone make you cry? Do I have to beat someone up for you, Rin-chan, 'cause I will!"_

It had amused her at the time. Obito would sooner trip over his own feet and fall upon on his own fist than successfully defend Rin's honor. Not that she minded. She wasn't friends with him for his mediocre taijutsu skills. " _No, I_ — _it seems silly now that I… I'm just … stressed, I think."_

" _About the medic stuff?"_

" _Yeah, it's … it's super hard, Obito-kun! There's so much to learn! On top of all the medical procedures I have to know about_ — _and there is_ so many  _of those, I couldn't even count them all_ — _I have to be aware of hospital protocols, which are unique to every village! There's, there's so much to learn and I know I get decent grades but I'm not a genius like_ — _like other people are_ —"

" _So what if you're not?"_ He'd said, trying to look stern but only managing to furrow his brows and pout at her. She'd thought it was so adorable at the time. " _What's being a genius got to do with it?"_

" _It'd make it all … so much_ easier _. That's all, Obito-kun. It would just make it easier."_

Obito scratched his cheek and asked, " _When has 'easier' ever been worth something to people like us, huh, Rin-chan? It's not fun if it's easy. And if you don't work super hard for something, how do you know that you've earned it?"_ She'd stared at him in awe long enough for his cheeks to turn pink. " _Ah, well, that's … that's just how I think about it. It looks really tough, Rin-chan. I'm impressed that you've already learned so much!"_

" _Really?"_

" _Yeah! I believe you can do this, Rin-chan, even though it's not easy. You're the best like that."_

It had been an experience that had unprecedented effects on her mindset.  _If you don't work hard for something, how do you know that you've earned it?_ It put Obito's actions into perspective, that was for sure. If he could keep working despite his clan hating him and his Sharingan being elusive, what was stopping her?

The will to fight? Rin had that in spades. Besides, how could she ever meet Obito again in the afterlife if she let the Tailed Beast beat her like this? If she didn't even  _try_?

She performed a primary assessment. As far as she could tell, the burning village she stood in the heart of was a mental construct. None of the wounds she had sustained were real, and as such, they didn't really hurt.

' _None of this was real_.'

With that realisation, the burning village faded away like ink dispersing in water, and all that was left was herself standing in the middle of an ocean that stretched into the sunset.

She was tired. She was  _very_ tired. She placed her hand to her chest, where there was an ugly scar; there  _should_ have been a hole. So, the Sanbi  _had_ healed her.

Rin concentrated until her hands glowed a pale green. She could use chakra inside her mindscape? ' _Huh… That's new._ ' She used the Mystic Palm jutsu to run a thorough diagnostic of herself; nothing serious, apart from mental and physical exhaustion and vitamin-D deficiency.

Rin took in her surroundings. Water. So much water that it was making her feel claustrophobic.

If this was her mind, why was it so empty? Didn't she have a new guest?

Where was it?

"Sanbi?" She called. She began to walk for the perpetual sunset. "Sanbi, are you here? Sanbi? Hey, can we talk?"

The horizon never got closer. The ocean stretched on like an endless blue carpet. Below her feet was an equally as hungry darkness, so Rin tried not to look down. "Sanbi? Sanbi, please! I need to talk to you!"

Rin walked.

"Sanbi!"

And walked…

"I want to get out now!"

And walked…

"Please, let me out. I want to see the world again. I know you can hear me!"

And  _walked_ …

"Are you going to give me the silent treatment the entire time?! Only children do that, Sanbi!"

_And walked…_

"I just want to be free!"

Until something from the depths wrapped coral around her ankles and pulled her under. She screamed as the water filled her lungs but did not drown her, as the coral dragged her deeper and deeper until Rin could no longer see the light of the sun, before she collided painfully with the sharp peaks of an underwater vent system.

One of the rocks blasted boiling water at her. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Sage, what the—" Rin healed herself and wailed to the heavens when the water surrounding her was suddenly displaced.  _Breathed,_ like an underwater wave.

There was a rumble.

Rin stopped looking up and started looking in front of her. A giant red and yellow eye stared down at her in disdain.

"B-Big…"  _Big_ was an understatement. The Sanbi was  _huge_. Rin couldn't see where it's magnificent shell stopped. It seemed to go on forever. "You're… you're the Sanbi?" There was no response to that, although there was no way it was anything else. "You're the one that's been keeping me trapped?"

The hot-water vents at her back exploded with activity. The Sanbi narrowed its eye. Scalding water teased the back of Rin's head, and she thought, vaguely terrified, ' _Message received.'_

"No, no, I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean to … I mean. I—"

A deep voice echoed through the pitch black water. "You spend weeks calling for my attention, and now that you have it, you speak like a bumbling fool."

Rin flushed. "It's—I had something planned! You're just … bigger than I thought you would be."

" _You_  are punier than I thought you would be."

"That's not very nice,"

"I am not nice," it replied. It exhaled sea foam. "What do you want. I am not giving you back your body."

Rin yelped, "Why not?!"

"You think that  _you're_ trapped? That  _your_ freedom is nought but a distant memory? You don't know a thing about being imprisoned! I have lived longer than all of your precious villages combined, and still, your race  _seals_ me, as if you have the right. You will not take this from me, human. I have waited lifetimes."

"But I—"

"No. I won't be your prisoner."

Before Rin could respond to  _that_ , an invisible force grabbed her by the hair and propelled her to the surface again. She sat on the top of the not-so-bottomless ocean and tried to make sense of that interaction. Freedom? The Sanbi talked of freedom? The only thing Tailed Beasts were capable of was destruction: could it resent shinobi for sealing it in the face of such power? It was self-preservation.

_I won't be your prisoner._

What was  _that_ supposed to mean?

* * *

Rin started walking again. "Sanbi! I want to speak with you! Please, just hear me out! I promise I'll actually say something this time! Sanbi!"

She did this for… for a while. The Sanbi was not that patient. If she stuck at it for long enough, she was dragged to the bottom of the ocean. It never let her speak. Every time she opened her mouth, it interrupted to tell her, "I won't let you take away my freedom," before launching her back up to the surface.

It became a cycle. Rin would scream for attention, the Sanbi would give her three seconds of it, she'd go back to the surface, she'd try again. It was tiring work. Rin gave up a few times—screaming aimlessly at the ocean wasn't exactly riveting—but found that simply sitting and watching the sunset for eternity was even worse.

She told him that. "I don't want to do this for the rest of eternity,"

The Sanbi had told her, "You know nothing of eternity," before throwing her back to the surface. Rin resolved to never discuss eternity with it again, if that's how it reacted.

At least it gave her time to think, though that could be a double-edged sword.

And so, she was back at it again. Calling like an albatross. Because that was becoming her life now. "SANBI. SANBI! I WANNA TALK TO YOU! SAAAAANBI! SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN—"

Coral around her ankle. Rin was dumped before the Sanbi once again. He told her, "Enough of this."

"I need to—"

"I will not be returning your body. Stop asking."

"I haven't even—"

"Your screaming is bothering me. I cannot properly enjoy my freedom when I have you yelling in the back of my head. It must stop, or I will eat you—"

Fed up, Rin crossed her arms and exclaimed, "Didn't  _anyone_ teach you that it's  _rude to interrupt?!_ " Oddly enough, this worked in shutting the Sanbi up. The reaction was so surprising that even Rin, who had a speech prepared in her head, was struck speechless alongside him.

The Sanbi growled when her silence held. " _Well_?" He sounded impatient.

Rin blinked. "Well," She echoed dumbly. Apparently, the Sanbi  _did_ have manners and didn't appreciate being told otherwise. Noted. She uncrossed her arms, clearing her throat. " _Well_. Since you've finally shut up to let me speak, I want to tell you that I haven't been yelling for your attention so I can ask for my body back. That was the intention at the beginning, I'll admit, but … it didn't seem to be working. So I revised what I wanted to talk to you about."

"And?"

" _And_ … I want to tell you… thank you. For healing my body and giving my heart back to me. I appreciate it." She bowed deeply. When she unbent, she flashed a 'peace' sign at the giant, ugly turtle and said, "You're honestly not as bad as I was expecting!"

Hell-illusions aside. With his freedom, the Sanbi had been swimming around a salt-water lake and nothing else. As soon as Rin had realised this, her expectations of him had somewhat soared. All the Sanbi wanted to do was splash about in the water like a child. There was no destruction of any human settlements—he was just playing with some fish.

It was kind of cute.

"... Annoying," the Sanbi mumbled. Like, actually mumbled. A Tailed Beast mumbled. Rin tilted her head, about to ask, 'what?' when she was pulled to the surface again. It took half a day of sitting right where he left her before Rin realised that the Sanbi had been  _embarrassed._

Oh, that was  _mega_ cute.

Wonder of wonders, he was a lot more willing to talk with her after that.

Rin tried to avoid bringing up the subject of her freedom in the early stages, although she was working up to that, it really  _was_ fun having someone to talk to. The Sanbi wasn't exactly human company but  _any_ company was better than nothing. The more she chatted with the beast, the more approachable he became—especially when he let his guard drop and started acting like a child.

Turns out, the dreaded Three-Tailed Beast was just a little boy.

That kind of broke Rin's heart.

The bottom of the ocean got a bit lighter, she thought. There was beautiful coral lining the rocks the third time Rin visited, and tiny fish by the ninth. The more she visited, the more populated the area became until it was a self-sustaining reef.

It was the most colorful piece of symbolism Rin had witnessed.

The Sanbi enjoyed telling her about marine life. He knew the names and abilities of them all, and had no problem chatting on and on about them.

His favorite ones he named: the sea-star was named aptly named "Hoshi," his favourite royal angelfish called "Tenshi," the vampire squid "Ika"—his names really weren't that mature or creative. The hideous triplewart seadevil he studiously referred to as "Yoi," in spite of the fish's terrifying appearance. (Yoi wasn't even a  _name._ ) His absolute favourite of all the animals was a baby green sea turtle, which he named "Isonade."

The Sanbi was surprisingly easy to get along with. Rin still missed her friends and family, but she wasn't so sad now with him there. He was nice to her.

It wasn't until he started talking about  _his_ family that Rin realised how poor of a friend  _she_ was being.

"—and I've never liked Shukaku because he's so loud and mean and he always picks on me and every time I would get upset about it, he'd tease me even more! So then Son Goku would have to interfere but whenever he tried to help, Kurama would get the idea that  _he_ needed to help and then they'd get into an argument over something and—"

Rin, who had been barely following the conversation, decided she had to interrupt. "Wait. Shukaku? Son Goku? Kurama? You've never mentioned them before," Were they some new fish? "Who are they?"

"Huh? My brothers!"

"You have brothers?"

"Yeah, and sisters! I have eight brothers and sisters! Shukaku, Matatabi, Son Goku, Kurama, Saiken, Choumei, Gyuuki and Kokuou! They're all mostly really nice except Shukaku because he always picks on me."

"Are they around?" Rin asked, twisting around to look for some, like, turtles or something. Big turtles. "Have I met them?"

The Sanbi was looking at her oddly. "Of course you haven't, Puny-Rin. They're all trapped, just like me."

Trapped? Rin didn't get it. "What do you mean? Can't we get them?"

"Probably not. We're not really the strongest, Puny-Rin. We could get Choumei, maybe, because her vessel is super weak, you know, but all the others… Nope. Besides, Kurama's so angry about everything and I don't want to talk to him right now."

 _Vessel?_ Rin's eyes widened. "Wait—are you talking about the other Tailed Beasts?"

Sanbi huffed. "What did  _you_ think I was talking about? You're so dumb, Puny-Rin."

Kurama. Choumei. Shukaku. All those names… the Tailed Beasts had names?

' _Of course they do,'_  She was ashamed of herself. ' _They're alive. They have siblings. They have personalities and desires and regrets. Of course they have names, Rin!'_

Rin rubbed her fingers on her skirt nervously and asked, "Who named you?"

"Dad did," said the S—the little boy. "You've probably heard of him," Rin was sure she never had. The Father to the Tailed Beasts... if she didn't know now, then she probably didn't want to. "He's really popular. And cool. He was  _so cool_."

"I'm… I'm really sorry I never asked before."

"Huh?"

"What did your Father name you?"

The fish around her seem to brighten in color. He told her, "He called me Isobu!"

"Isobu … that's a good name, Isobu-kun."

"Thanks, Puny-Rin," Isobu's tails swayed. There were fish playing with them, diving over and under them like they were apart of an obstacle course. "I'm still not gonna let you trap me in your stomach just 'cause you know my name now!" He added cheerfully.

Rin sighed, dipping her head. "Of course not…"

* * *

**8 months**

"You don't have a favourite food?"

"What a weird question … I don't need to eat, why would I have a favourite food?"

"You've never eaten before?"

"Nope!"

"Never eaten a full meal, surely. What about snacks, like berries? Have you eaten any of those before? They're so juicy… I think you'd like them."

"I'm really big, Puny-Rin. I can't eat berries. I'd have to eat  _lots_ and I just don't have that time."

"... You're immortal, Isobu-kun."

"I have better things to do!"

* * *

**10 months**

"I thought Yoi-chan could only exist at the bottom of the ocean, and Tenshi-chan could only survive in a shallow reef. How come they can live together here, Isobu-kun?"

"None of this is real, Puny-Rin."

"That doesn't mean you can ignore realism!"

"Why not? That's the entire point of genjutsu. See, I'll show you."

"If you try and show me Kakashi proposing  _one more time_ , I'm not talking to you for a week."

* * *

**18 months**

"Myth or fact: you can regrow entire limbs."

"Fact."

"How long does it take?"

"I've never timed it, you know… a couple of minutes, I think. It depends on how tired I am."

"Cool. Myth or fact: Tailed Beasts cannot die."

"Myth. We can die. It doesn't stick, though. We come back."

"Then … then you can't die,"

"No, we  _can_ be killed, we just don't—oh. Fact, then. We can't die."

"Sheesh, Isobu-kun, listen to the question next time… Myth or fact: Isobu-kun is the cutest of all his siblings."

"Haha, fact! Fact! You think I'm cute, Puny-Rin?"

"Sure I do. You're super adorable, Isobu-kun. Now, myth or fact: Matatabi is a water-type beast."

" _Myth_. Who told you that? Matatabi's a fire type! Her flames are so strong they're  _blue!_  That's so insulting… I hope Matatabi never finds out who said that, she won't like it."

"It was just something I heard in the frontlines. Okay, myth or fact…"

* * *

**23 months**

"How long has it been, Isobu-kun?"

"Since when?"

"Since I… died, I guess."

"Ano… two years, I think."

"...Ah. So everyone definitely believes I'm dead."

"Mmm, yeah, but at least you have me, Puny-Rin! So we're not alone. And we have Ika and Tenshi and Hoshi and Yoi and Isonade as well."

"That's true. Thank you, Isobu-kun."

* * *

**26 months**

"What was your Dad like, Puny-Rin?"

" _Tall._ "

" _How_ tall?"

"My Papa is the tallest man I know! I hope I get his height, but I don't think I will, which is a shame. He's not a shinobi like Mama was—she's retired now, knee injury—but he is a medicine peddler, so he knows his stuff. He's actually not from Konohagakure, did I tell you that? He comes from one of the islands off the coast of the Fire Country. I think it was on the border between Fire and Water or something, he never talked about it much. He moved to the village because his home town wasn't enough for him…"

* * *

**28 months**

"What about your Papa?"

"My Dad was the strongest shinobi in the entire world."

"I'll give you benefit of the doubt, Isobu-kun. What was he like? Was he nice?"

"He was the nicest. I've never met a human as nice as Dad was. All he wanted was for us to be happy! Of course, he didn't foresee that the world would be full of mean puny humans who don't compare to his kindness, but he really wanted us to be good. I think Choumei and Saiken are winning at that. Kurama's definitely not, that's for sure."

"He was human?"

"Yeah, what else would he be? My Dad was the first shinobi."

"Are… are you telling me that the  _Sage of Six Paths_ is your Father?"

"Who  _else_ would be?"

"...That's a good point, Isobu-kun. Continue."

* * *

**30 months**

"How long now?"

"It's only been 6 months since the last time you asked,"

"' _Only_ '."

* * *

**31 months**

"Your Obito seems pretty lame, Puny-Rin."

"He kind of was. But he was pretty cool, too."

"You know what I think? I think Puny-Rin had a  _crush_!"

"What—"

"Puny-Riin's in love! You wanna kiss him! You wanna love him! You wanna marry him!"

" _Isobu why_ —"

"PUNY-RIN AND LAME-OBITO SITTING IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. FIRST COMES LOVE, THEN COMES MARRIAGE, THEN COMES A BABY IN A BABY CARRIAGE!"

"P-Please stop that, Isobu-kun…"

"Okay… Mrs. Uchiha Rin."

"You're the  _worst boy_ I know _."_

* * *

**33 months**

"Myth or fact: The Tailed Beasts have been here since the beginning of Ninshu."

"Fact. Well, a little bit. It's complicated. But we were there, yup."

"Myth or fact: You are very, very old."

"Fact!"

"Alright… Myth or fact: You are going to outlive me."

"Uh, fact?"

"Myth or fact: You'll forget about me, one day. When you've lived all those years and I'm nothing more than someone you used to know but can't remember anything about, because you're very old and I'm very young and my life is one blink compared to your lifespan. You won't be able to help it."

"Myth!  _Myth, myth, myth, myth_ —"

"Isobu-kun..."

"That's a lie! Puny-Rin! Dumb-Rin! Stupid-Rin!  _Myth!_ As if I'd forget about you!"

"You've been alive since the beginning of Ninshu, Isobu-kun, and this has just been… two years of thousands. You won't be able to help it, and I'm not all that memorable in the first place. It's okay, I'm not mad."

" _I am_! I'm mad! Puny-Rin, I'm not a dumb human like you are! My memory's way better! I don't forget a thing unless they're boring, and you're the dumbest person I know but you're not boring  _or_ forgettable! I'm gonna remember you always, stupid!"

"..."

" _What are you crying about now!?_ I should be the one who's sad, if you're underestimating me like that!"

"I'm not sad, Isobu-kun… This is happy. Humans cry when they're happy, too."

"... You're so  _weird._ Whatever, we're not playing this game anymore. It's not even that fun. I want to play tag, can we play tag?"

"Sure, Isobu-kun. Don't forget to include Ika this time."

* * *

**36 months**

It was before Rin's seventeenth birthday—not that she was aware of this—when Isobu came to her with a proposition.

"Kurama's gone and made a mess of things," He started, his single eye glazed over. She had no idea how he  _knew_ things like this about his siblings, how he was able to keep track of them even if he didn't get every detail of their situation, but she couldn't ask. Isobu didn't know how he did it either. He came back to her in time to see the bare horror on her face. "The village is still standing," He assured her, knowing what her first concern would be.

"What about the people?" Rin gasped.

Isobu hummed. "Not… not so good," He said quietly, nervously, and for a split-second, Rin hated Isobu's brother so passionately she couldn't breathe, "He did a number on it, that's for sure. He's kind of muted again. I think someone sealed him up again."

It took everything she had not to say, ' _good.'_  Isobu hated talking about his old vessels and she had the feeling that he wouldn't appreciate her pleasure regarding his brother's imprisonment.

"What about… do you know anything about Kakashi? And Minato-sensei and Kushina-nee? Are they okay?"

"Eh, I can't tell. Kurama isn't telling anyone anything. I guess he's really mad."

" _Mad_?" Her hands shook. She stared at them and willed them to  _stop._ She was a medic. She couldn't have shaky hands. "Why is  _he_ mad?"

"I can't tell," Isobu said uncomfortably, "I'm- I'm sure he has a good reason."

Rin doubted it.

"But that isn't what I wanted to talk about. It's related, though. I know… I know Puny-Rin has been wanting to visit the village lately, and since it's kind of a mess right now… I think… it'll be okay if we visit." Her head shot up. Isobu wasn't looking directly at her. "Just—for a bit, okay? We can't stay long and you can't talk to anyone, otherwise they'll try and capture us, and I'm not going to become a prisoner again!"

"You won't," She promised, voice trembling with emotion, "You're my friend, Isobu. I won't let them take you."

And Isobu said, " _Us._ Take  _us._ You can't  _stay_ , okay?"

"I know. I  _know_. I'm a jinchuuriki now; the village won't take kindly to them, after what your… and I've been dead to them for a while, Minato-sensei will want to know what took me so long to come back and the explanation won't sit well with them."  _I was just trapped in my mindspace while my friend, the Tailed Beast, took control of my body for three years._ They'd think she was compromised. She sort of was. "But if I could just make sure everyone is okay… that'll be all I need, Isobu-kun."

He still seemed a bit unsure. "You won't let them take us?" His voice warbled.

Rin smiled as reassuringly as she could and promised him— _you're a medic, Rin, don't promise anything you can't guarantee_ —"We won't be separated, Isobu-kun."

Isobu bowed his head and let her cling to the rough shell around his head.

And then he started swimming  _up_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Local Girl Wakes Up From Two Year Long Nap, Doesn't Know What Day It Is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Nudity, non-explicit references to death, drowning imagery.

**Precision Work**

—  **V** —

* * *

Rin burst from the water and took her first breath in three years.

It was  _bliss._

Rin floated on her back and breathed the air. Real, cool, fresh air. She felt sensation in a way she didn't realise she was missing. The water tickled, lapping at the unblemished skin, while the breeze carried the scent of wood and salt, traces of smoke, and food.

That was another thing altogether. She hadn't eaten in years.

Rin closed her eyes against the sting of tears and thought fiercely, ' _Thank you, Isobu. Thank you so much._ '

There was a simmering of an odd emotion from her friend. ' **Of course, Puny-Rin** ,' He said, and then nothing more. She wondered if being reduced to a construct in her mind was bothering him. Despite her discomfort at the thought, Rin decided that she would fulfill her duty as soon as possible for his sake. It couldn't have been nice for him to be so closed up.

This was real. She could feel it in her heart. She'd never thought she could be so happy to be floating in a lake.

Rin kicked her feet and swam on her back, doing it purely for the novelty. A lightness overcame her heart and soon, she was giggling, laughing, twisting to her front to properly swim through the lake. Move, move, move. She could move. She could feel!

What else could she do when she was alive that she hadn't appreciated enough? Rin treaded water and went through the necessary hand seals. Hare, ox, ram, boar, dog, "Suiton: Shigure!" Water vaporized and gathered together a short distance above her in a cloud, where bullets of water shot out fast enough to be devastating.

The rush of chakra was thrilling, and with a breathless laugh, Rin performed the Mystic Palm jutsu on herself just to feel that comforting, familiar wave of calming green chakra throughout her body. She felt dizzy on it. Real _._ Rin ducked her head underwater and held her breath until her lungs screamed for air; she came back to the surface crying from happiness.

_It hurt._

_This was real._

She was  _alive._

Rin thrust her fist in the air and screamed, "I'm ALIVE!" with an additional, "SCREW YOU, KIRIGAKURE! I'M  _ALIVE!_ " Following that, somewhat hysterical laughter. She refused to feel embarrassed about any of it. She was breathing _._ The rapid-fire  _thump-thump-thump_ in her ears was her heart _._ She had one of those, despite all efforts to ensure otherwise!

Alive!

Kiri had lost!

To her left, an unfamiliar voice spoke up, "You're… you're also naked, miss, uh, shinobi-san?"

Huh?

Rin twisted to face the bank. There was a man and his daughter fishing, both of them with pointed hats and their jaws touching the ground. The daughter, somewhere around Rin's age, was staring determinedly to the side with a red face. The older man (her father?) looked much more uncomfortable, and a little concerned.

The man cleared his throat. "Are you … okay?"

Rin looked down. She could see her bare feet treading water. She could also see that she  _wasn't wearing any clothes._ Oh, Sage, she'd been floating _._ On her  _back._ In front of these people… Her face went hot.

Rin squeaked and ducked under the water to shriek as long as she could for as long as she could. Isobu began to laugh at her. When she asked him angrily where her clothes had gone, he reminded her, ' **It's been three years, Puny-Rin. You spent all of them as** _ **me.**_ **Your clothes disintegrated the first time I transformed.** '

' _Why didn't you warn me?!'_

' **How was I supposed to know you wouldn't remember how it felt to be wearing clothes? You can't blame me!'**

Rin was determined to do it anyway. She came up for air. The father-daughter duo were still waiting for her response. Rin gave them a 'peace' sign and tried on a smile, well-aware that it came off as feeble. "I'm… I'm okay, sir! Just, uh, naked. I seem to have misplaced my clothes."

"So it seems," agreed the old man. He sighed. "Your lot sure are unusual… I don't live too far away, shinobi-san. I'm sure my daughter here can find some clothes for you to wear for the time being, if that suits you?"

Rin nodded shyly, " _Please_."

The daughter cleared her throat. The blush was gone, and now she was sneaking bemused looks at Rin from the corner of her eye. Apparently, the second-hand embarrassment wasn't so potent that she couldn't find some amusement in the situation. "Tsunami," Her father began.

Tsunami waved him away, handing him her fishing rod and climbing to her feet. "I heard, Papa. How old are you, shinobi-san? So I have some idea of what size clothes I should bring?"

Rin looked down at herself. She flushed, unable to tell if she'd grown any without getting out of the water and standing up. That wasn't an option, for obvious reasons. "Your age, I think. Um… the biggest clothes you have will do, please, Tsunami-san. Thank you," Better to be safe than sorry. She could always tighten it around the waist with a sash. Clothes that were too big were preferable to clothes too small.

Tsunami bobbed her head and began walking back. The fishermen (and woman) had set up on an isolated, sturdy wharf. Rin could see that the lake Isobu had settled in was on the shore of some sort of little town. A fishing town? The entire country  _looked_ to be water-locked, and Rin realised that she was lucky to have surfaced here, as opposed to one of the more populated areas. It would have sucked to return to her body only to have a fish hook catch in her mouth.

Not that  _this_ was any less embarrassing.

Isobu continued laughing. Rin swallowed her embarrassment and asked, "Where am I, sir?"

"Tazuna," He introduced himself shortly, "and you are in the Land of Waves. Which village are you affiliated with, shinobi-san?"

Land of Waves? Rin hadn't ever fought here before. She had no idea where it was. ' _Do you know, Isobu-kun?'_

' **I remember how I got here,** ' He assured her, ' **Keep your puny concerns to yourself. I'll handle navigation, okay?** '

That was a relief. ' _Thanks. I don't know what I'd do without you._ '

He hummed, non-responsive to praise in a way he usually wasn't, retracting his voice from her head. So strange. She really would have to check in and make sure he was okay and wasn't second-guessing this jaunt of hers.

"Uh… Konohagakure."

Tazuna suddenly grinned. "If you'd said Iwagakure, I might have had to leave you to catch pneumonia," He admitted without hesitation. He stood up and wiped some sweat away with the towel around his neck. There was a low-burning fire going behind him, which he stoked until it was  _really_ going. "Are you hungry? I can put on some fish for you, if you'd like."

Rin almost started crying. " _Really,_ Tazuna-san? You'll share your fish with me?"

"My daughter is quite good at fishing," Tazuna said, a note of pride in his voice, "She'll be able to get back whatever you eat, so it's no hassle to share. We can afford to. How do you like your herrings, shinobi-san?"

She could eat it raw and it would be the best meal of her life. "Crispy, thank you Tazuna-san!"

Tazuna laughed at her enthusiasm. "Coming right up, shinobi-san,"

"Oh, you can call me Rin,"

"Rin-san, then. Humor an old man, would you? How  _did_ you arrive in my lake completely naked? Surely Konoha has closer ones."

"Not salt lakes," she pointed out.

"Is that important?"

' _Is it?'_

' **Yup.** '

"Yup!" Tazuna looked like he wanted to ask more about it, then decided that he was better off not knowing. Rin took this as permission to change the subject. "This is the Land of Waves, is it, Tazuna-san? What do you guys do here? Um, if you don't mind me asking."

"Not at all." The fish sizzled. Rin may or may not have started drooling. "The main occupation is in, as you would assume, fishing. It's where most of our trade is centered, as well as the peddling of medicinal herbs. Our forests grow quite a bit of the rare stuff that you can't find elsewhere. Before the war we used to be the go-between for villages in the transportation of goods due to our geological position, but that's not really an option for us anymore."

For obvious reasons, yes.

"Are you a fisherman?"

"Ah, not me. My daughter is. I'm just a humble carpenter. My current project is a new residential district, but I take contracts from outside the town as well. The war destroyed a lot of homes, as I'm sure you're aware of, having fought in them yourself. As such, I'm in high-demand." Tazuna grinned, seeming quite proud of himself indeed. "You're looking at one of the wealthiest bachelors the Wave has ever seen!"

Rin clapped accordingly. "That's impressive, Tazuna-san. You really leave your home to rebuild other people's houses?" He nodded. "You're a really good person! How long have you been doing this?"

"Since the war ended, so… five years? The demand for my work is slowing down, so I'm back with Tsunami more often. Just as well, too! She's grown into quite a beautiful young lady, so boys are starting to pay attention to her."

"And what's so bad about that?" Rin asked sternly, "Tsunami-san doesn't need her Father chaperoning her dates, does she?"

He blushed, a bit embarrassed. "Well, of course not… but I've babysitted more than half the boys in this town, Rin-san, and I know that none of them will treat her like she deserves. As a man, I call tell these sorts of things."

Dubious. Rin hummed.

Tazuna sweatdropped. "Uh… speaking of my lovely daughter, here she comes now. Tsunami! Did you find anything that would fit?"

Tsunami was, indeed, approaching with an armful of fabric. "I did, and a towel. I wasn't sure what type of clothes you like so I brought a lot. Variety!" Tsunami gently laid out the clothes on the dry wharf. Rin blinked at the sheer amount. "Can you swim up and choose?"

"You… really didn't need to bring that many," said Tazuna.

Tsunami slapped his bare shoulder. "You have no idea how a girl's mind works, Papa," She snapped, sniffing, "Prettiness is  _important._  Shinobi-san?"

Rin preferred practicality over prettiness, but found that the options excited her regardless. Like most things, it seemed to be the novelty that triumphed any personal opinion.

"Do you have any brown?" Rin asked. She barely dodged the rod that came down to smack her. "Tsunami-san?!"

Tsunami had an expression of mortal offense. " _Brown_?!"

"O-Or white?"

"No!"

' **What a personality change… scary.** '

' _You're telling me?_ '

"Purple," Tsunami decided, thrusting forward a sleeveless purple kimono with black trimmings. There were no pockets that Rin could see. "It goes well with your coloring."

"I have enough purple," Rin said, pointing to her cheek-markings. "I'm not color-coordinating based on my birth marks, Tsunami-san.

"Pink, then,"

Rin shook her head. "I can't wear pink, Tsunami-san. I'm a shinobi." Tsunami scrunched her nose up. She held up a dark blue loose-turtleneck and a light grey pinstripe skirt, which Rin pulled at to test it's stretchiness and mobility. Hm. Bit too…  _Kiri_ for her, but… there was technically nothing wrong with it. "There aren't many pockets…"

Tsunami narrowed her eyes. "I have a haori back in my closet with lots of pockets. You're lucky it matches that shade of blue otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned it."

Rin wasn't sure how she felt about that. She wore brown-and-white during the war and all the way until her 'death'. She wore an  _apron_ skirt. Fashion was not Rin's speciality, and she wasn't sure it ever would be.

"T-Thank you?"

Tsunami nodded. "I'll go get it now. Papa, you come with me, Rin needs to dry off and get changed." Tazuna looked about as prepared for Tsunami as Rin had been (which was not at all). He was dragged from the wharf by his overbearing daughter without complaint. Rin watched them disappear into the main town bickering about chores feeling distinctly off-balance.

She cleared her throat. ' _Isobu-kun… what do you think of my new outfit?'_

' **You look like a puny human, as always.** '

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting.

Well, what else was there to do? Rin pulled herself out from the water, thanking Isobu for not allowing her muscles to atrophy, and began drying herself off. Tsunami proved her prowess by stuffing underwear in the arms of some of the shirts, evidently to hide them from prying eyes, which made Rin laugh. She was naked. Someone seeing her underwear wasn't going to kill her.

The skirt fit well-enough. Rin did some lunges in it and was satisfied with the mobility it allowed her. The turtleneck was itchy and way too tight around her chest—which was apparently  _a thing_  now—but the sleeves were kind of loose. She could store some stuff up there, right?

Rin ran her fingers through her hair. Three years without a haircut. It reached her mid-back now, tangled to hell and back. Tsunami, in all her genius, hadn't the foresight to leave Rin a comb or machete to deal with her hair.

Rin had never handled long hair before. She wasn't sure where to begin. The fire crackled. Rin blinked, remembering the herring roasting for her. ' _There's a good place to start,_ ' She thought, and sat down to tear into her meal.

* * *

The haori was a rather underwhelming dark green color. Tsunami stared at her until she pretended to be relieved that it wasn't brown. Rin was afraid to show how little she cared about it all; at least Tazuna looked equally as lost. The green was a small, strange comfort as well, she supposed. It wasn't quite Konoha green, but it was close.

The haori  _did_ have pockets so that was something she cared about. Rin filled them with herbs (courtesy of Tazuna) and kitchen knives (courtesy of Tsunami) and tried to feel less like a blob of flesh-and-chakra and more like a war-hardened medic nin. She wasn't sure how successful she was.

Isobu assured her that she remained as unimpressive as ever, as if he was a trusted opinion on matters such as humans.

Set for her mission, Rin bowed to the family of civilians. "Thank you very much for your help, Tazuna-san, Tsunami-san!"

Tsunami was still eyeing the haori critically, Rin was afraid to ask why. Tazuna smiled at her and shook his head. "It was no problem, Rin-san. If you ever need a carpenter, make sure you come to me before anyone else, okay? I'll even give you a discount!"

"Sure will, Tazuna-san. I'll be sure to visit!"

"Do that," Tsunami pursed her lips, "but only if you aren't wearing the same clothes when you come back. You seem like the type who wouldn't change their outfit for a while."

A disturbingly accurate judgement. Rin laughed nervously and tried not to literally run away. "Take care, you two!"

"Safe travels, Rin-san!"

Rin kept waving until she was out of sight. Then she sighed, considered the escape from the town with her life (and clothes) a major success, and dipped her head back to feel the sun on her face. It was so warm. Rin really had missed this.

She closed her eyes and prodded Isobu. ' _Are you okay?'_

Whenever Obito didn't want to talk to her about something he thought was stupid and too personal, he would pout, cross his arms, and grumble about how 'everything was peachy'. Isobu, being a complete child, employed the same tactics. ' **What is there to be** _ **not**_   **okay about?'**

' _You've been acting strange ever since I took over,_ ' Rin cut to the chase, unwilling to see how long an immortal child could dance around a subject, ' _Is something wrong? Do you want control again?'_

' **It's not that! Can we not talk about this?'**

' _Uh, no. You can't bottle things up, and considering we share the same mind, you_ definitely  _shouldn't try and hide things from me. We have to talk it out, Isobu-kun. Better sooner rather than later.'_

' **Humans are unnecessarily confrontational,'** Isobu decided. She tried to think pointedly at him. ' **...It's really not that important, Puny-Rin.'**

' _Try me.'_

Isobu sighed. Really quite petulantly, too. ' **I… may have been… wrong.'**

Whoa.

' _About?'_ Isobu was admitting that he wasn't right about everything. Rin had known him for a long time. He rarely admitted faults in his reasonings. ' _Don't clam up now, Isobu-kun. I promise I won't make fun of you.'_

He radiated a bit of gratitude at that. Not  _much_ , because god forbid he be thankful for her consideration. ' **Do you remember when I told you that you couldn't understand what it meant to be trapped?'**

Rin remembered vividly being told that, including the cold disappointment that followed. She'd moved past it, mostly, but still didn't appreciate the reminder. She hadn't known Isobu back then and he certainly had no reason to care about her wants and needs; the cruelty, in hindsight, should not have been as surprising as it was. ' _I remember. Is that what you think you were wrong about?'_

' **Mm.'**

Even  _more_ surprising.

' **You were really happy to be in control again, even though you were naked,'** Isobu ignored the flare of humiliation from her side of things, ' **I forget that you puny humans have such small lifespans. To me, three years is not much time, least of all to be free. Three years is, like, half of your life. Gone. Just like that.'**

' _Well, not quite_ half—'

' **I was being selfish, Puny-Rin. I didn't even consider that you've already lived most of your life in captivity when I denied you the chance to be free,'**

' _That's really nice of you, Isobu-kun, and I appreciate that you're taking the chance to atone for that, but I need you to understand that three years isn't_ half my life—'

' **It's just as good,'**

' _I'm not six years old?'_

' **Compared to** _ **me,**_ **yes, you are, which is my point! Shouldn't you be happier that I'm seeing your side of the argument, Puny-Rin? You're always yapping on about how I'm going to "outlive you" and that I'm going to "forget all about you" because I'm just** _ **so old**_ **. Well, now I believe you!'**

Did he not believe her before?

Rin groaned lightly. Isobu's high-pitched voice was even more annoying than expected. Underwater, it was a lot deeper. Not so much for surface interactions. ' _As I said, thank you for understanding now. I am happy, don't think I'm not. I just don't get why you're bringing it up now.'_

Now he seemed awkward. ' **... Um, well. Since your lifespan is so short, and mine is so tremendously, impressively long—especially in comparison to your puny one—I'm thinking… maybe you don't have to immediately return control to me after you're done checking on your stupid village?'**

Rin tripped over a root, face planting indelicately. ' _HUH?! Isobu-kun, are you serious?'_

' **Why would I say it if I wasn't being serious?'** This was the perfect opportunity to cry. ' **No, it isn't. Stop crying. Stop** _ **blubbering.**_ **Puny-Rin, you are embarrassing me. Gyuuki's partner doesn't cry.'**

Rin sobbed. ' _Gyuuki's partner? Are_ we  _partners now?'_

' **Jeez, you really are dumb… I don't want to talk to you anymore.'**

' _Isobu-kun!'_

' **I'll tell you when I want the body back to go for a swim. It won't be permanent though—you can always have it back. That's all I wanted to say.'**

' _Thank yoooou!'_

Isobu mumbled a short, ' **Bye.'** and disappeared. Just like that.

Rin healed her broken nose, checked for watchers, and shrieked to the sky, "SCREW YOU, KIRIGAKURE!"

It was  _so_ cathartic.

* * *

Apart from checking in to tell her when she was taking the wrong turns, Isobu made like a tsundere and blushed in the corner of her mind, snapping when she asked if he was okay. Rin left him to it. But not without telling him how much she loved and appreciated him (and she really, really,  _really_ did, which was a strange thing to admit, considering).

It was a two day trip with only a few stops for bathroom breaks. Rin sipped at the water bottle Tazuna gave her, cautious about consuming too much and leaving none for the trip back, but there was nothing to worry about on that front. She was experienced at rationing her supplies.  _Hello_ , she was apart of a war! It wasn't like an Akimichi buffet followed the platoons to ensure they were all well-fed.

Her muscles were in better condition now than they had been when she died, and for that she had her turtle companion to thank. She took her time walking to Konoha, comfortable with the fact that it would be waiting for her, and allowed herself to admire the world around her. The birdsong, the rustling trees, the chirping squirrels and even a few gassy skunks.

She was still a medic, even after all this time.

She knew how to appreciate life.

' _Have you ever seen anything so pretty, Isobu-kun?'_

' **Stop talking to me, Puny-Rin.'**

Everything was beautiful! Nothing hurt! You always appreciated things better if they were taken away from you, and Rin was quite comforted to see that that belief carried over into this experience of hers. She was  _happy_ , and that was such a relief; coming back from death with a finer appreciation of life was better than coming back  _angry_.

The Land of Fire Forest was not as she left it.

Which was a good thing.

For one, there were no bodies or military-standard tents housing returning shinobi (and anti-infiltration protocols). The persisting stench of blood was no longer in the air. Since she woke there had been a mysterious concern that lingered in the back of her mind, insidiously suggesting that maybe the war  _wasn't_ actually over, that her death, instigated by Kiri ninja, reignited simmering tempers.

But the trees were not scarred.

Rin ran her fingers across the bark and laughed.

' _And I can come back to this,'_ She realised. Isobu promised that while he would want control, he would not shackle the privilege to himself. She could live again as well. She could be free. She could walk the lands on her bare feet and see for herself all the evidence of peace.

That was a plan, wasn't it? Since she couldn't stay in Konoha, she could always travel the world. She was dead, however technically, and dead was as close to unaffiliated as a shinobi could get. She hadn't been a figurehead during the war and as far as Kirigakure knew, Isobu died with her. There was no official Sanbi Jinchuuriki.

' _I wanted freedom,'_ She thought wryly, ' _It doesn't get better than this.'_

Isobu butted in to inform her that village security was poor but she shouldn't risk getting too close despite it. Word hadn't quite spread about the devastating blow to Konoha's power so the primary focus was rebuilding as much as they could as quickly as they could. An average chunin medic nin wasn't a threat, exactly, but any infiltration was bad infiltration.

The biggest problem about her new jinchuuriki status was the chakra. Rin never had much of it to begin with and her chakra control—perfect, cutting,  _precise_ —had reflected that. With Isobu, a veritable chakra demon, all that control was blown straight to hell.

' _It's going to be a short visit and our chakra is completely entwined. Could you hold the fort down, Isobu-kun?'_

' **For a little while, probably.'**

' _Thanks._ '

Chakra control exercises. She'd have to remember that. Rin found a tree and climbed. Or tried to. Her tree walking wasn't working—her feet blasted off half the trunk.

She  _really_ needed to practice again, wow. This was shameful.

In the end, all she could do was leap for the branches and climb via jumping. Hardly the most elegant way of traveling, but it  _was_ entertaining. Rin had a bit of fun with it!

At the peak of the tallest tree she could find, Rin looked upon her village.

Her heart dropped to her stomach.

' _Your brother did this, Isobu-kun?'_ Isobu was quiet. A cold feeling crawled up Rin's spine and settled in the back of her neck like a parasite. ' _What did he do to my_ home _?'_

He'd  _destroyed it_. The sky was still rent with smoke and ashes, although there was nothing burning. The south-east part of the village—wall included— was nothing but ruins and rubble, and it was where the most activity was centered. She saw a battalion guardian the missing wall, groups of little people moving in and out, removing the smashed wood, crushed stone, carrying  _bodies_ , and felt sick. Through the center of the village was the marketplace—now, it was completely bare but for a few stragglers leaping across the rooftops.

There was not one place untouched.

The residential district alone was—

The situation felt eerily similar to something Rin couldn't quite place. She was trembling from sickness and rage and fear. Her home. Her  _home._

"How … how could this happen?" She clenched her fists and sent Isobu a short, sincere apology. Rin promised they wouldn't be separated and that Isobu's freedom wouldn't be endangered by her trip. It was a promise she intended on keeping. But she couldn't sit in the tree and go no further. "I need to make sure Sensei and Kakashi are okay."

' **Puny-Rin. No.'**

' _Smother as much of yourself as you can, Isobu-kun. Even if it's just for a little while. I'll be as quick as I can.'_

' **I can't** _ **do that**_ —' He'd have to, because Rin pushed as much chakra as she could and exploded into the air, reaching a genuinely insane height. Like, it was really crazy. Jinchuuriki chakra defied the laws of physics.

And then she was falling and had no idea how to slow her descent.

Oh, crap. She did not think this through.

Isobu made a soft groaning noise. ' **You're so dumb,'**  He huffed, and all of a sudden Rin couldn't feel her arms or mouth at all. ' **Smother the chakra yourself, idiot.'**

Uh. Okay. Rin got right to that. It was harder than she was expecting; like trying to cover a boulder with a hand towel and hugging a bubble without popping it, both at the same time. She mentally apologized Isobu for the inconvenience of, well, everything, and put her complete faith in him. He was the only chance she had to avoid falling to death.

Her hands moved of their own accord, and her mouth did just about the same thing. " **Suiton: Fōmukuraudo** ," Isobu said through her, and a sliver of red chakra that she was trying to  _restrain, thank you_ , escaped her cage. Water vapor gathered under her feet until it was thick enough for her to feel.

And then it rather spontaneously turned into sea foam.

' **There,'**  Isobu said with no small amount of satisfaction. He shoved her out of the way and went back to quieting down his monstrous chakra, leaving Rin with the foam cloud. She was no longer falling, at least.

The horror of the destruction around her aside, being suspending by a floating ball of sea foam was untold levels of awesome.

"How long have you been able to do this?"

Isobu laughed and didn't properly reply. ' **I am using** _ **so much chakra**_ **right now, Puny-Rin, you have no idea. Move quickly. We'll be noticed sooner than you wanted.'** Or maybe that was his proper reply.

"Are we leaking chakra?" That was horrifying. Rin hadn't leaked chakra since she was six. Did she have the control of a six year old? She reached for the bubbling chakra inside the  _flying foam cloud_ (holy crap) and controlled the water vapor in it the same way she'd control the movements of a water whip, and was pleased that it worked the same way.

Isobu was offended, ' **I am not** _ **leaky**_ **,'** He cried, ' **If anything, it's** _ **you**_ **that's leaking!'**

Gross.

Rin was not much of a sensor. She'd always been pretty good at picking out Kakashi's pretty hair in any sort of crowd, though, and the talent had never been so relevant before in her life. She shot past the untouched Hokage Mountain—choked on her spit when she saw Minato-sensei's face on there ( _they finished the sculpture!_ )—and searched for whatever remained of her team.

The longer she went without spotting Kakashi's lopsided gravity-defying head, Minato-sensei's sunny locks, or Kushina-nee's  _everything_ , the more worried and hopeless she became. It wasn't like her team was the only thing she cared about, but Konoha would be harder to come back to if they weren't there as well.

To make matters worse, Rin had no chance or time of finding her brunette parents. Not like this. While at least she could check on her teammates, regarding her Mother and Father, Rin simply had to pray that they'd escaped with their lives.

She thought about asking for Isobu's help, but dismissed the idea. She couldn't have him doing everything for her.

Though that left her with an uncomfortable thought. She was a medic, sure, and a damn good one (considering she had the control for the Mystic Palm jutsu but not, oddly enough,  _tree walking?_ Was she actually overpowering her Mystic Palm?  _How was that even possible?_ ), but considering she was about to wander the world  _alone_ …

A inventory of jutsu limited purely on the Mystic Palm was … not going to cut it.

She was going to have to improve. By  _a lot_.

Rin ended up flying over a huge funeral. She wondered how she hadn't noticed before and hovered, too high up to hear anything or see the faces in the small picture frames. It must have been a mass memorial. She'd attended a lot of those during the war, though there'd never been such an impressive showing for those compared to this.

Then again, the residential district  _had_ been destroyed. Civilians suffered as much as shinobi this time. There would be more attending, taking that into consideration.

Rin didn't want to stick around any longer than she had to, finding it disrespectful to linger if she didn't known who the funerals were for. She sent a quick, heart-felt prayer for the safe delivery of all the souls the village had lost before flying off on her foam cloud.

She scouted a little longer yet but to her immense disappointment, Rin couldn't see her precious people at all. It was depressing. Rin's heart ached at the implication of it.

However, she couldn't stick around and mourn them like they deserved. Not when she had her promise to Isobu to be mindful of. Her chakra was not under her control at all. Heeding Isobu's frantic warnings, Rin departed the village, and flew further past the Konoha outposts until she was safely out of Konohagakure territory. The cloud brought her to the ground before dispersing back into the air as vapor.

She hadn't found anyone. Not Kakashi, not Minato-sensei, not Kushina-nee, and not her parents.

Rin crawled into the nearest tree, thought, ' _I think I've earned this_ , 'and began to cry.

She cried very hard that day, and all through the night, and even a little bit in the morning before she made the decision that she'd cried quite enough for now. Shinobi died. That what they did. A good shinobi died for their village. The  _best_ of them died in defense of it.

It was the best death their career could afford them, if nothing else, and Rin let that be a cold comfort.


	4. Isobu Isn't Ready For The Responsibility of a Child; Rin Doesn't Care

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rin wants to adopt. Isobu wants to do anything _but_ that. There's a clash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Vomiting, convoluted and dubious elaboration upon Isobu's powers, inelegant time-skips, fratricide, and everything bad associated with Haku's backstory.
> 
> Also, so much dialogue. Why so much dialogue?

**Precision Work**

—  **V** —

* * *

Rin had died for her team. She underwent the ultimate sacrifice and duty that a shinobi has, and she did it coolly, without hesitation, and at the cost of her teammate's sanity. For her village, she'd endangered the emotional stability of her team.

What more was there for Rin to give?

* * *

It was after a nightmare that Rin had the idea.

"Chakra strings!"

' **What?'**

"It's how I'm going to practice my chakra. Chakra strings." Isobu didn't understand so she explained, "Sunagakure is popular for using them in tandem with their puppets—it's how they control them, you see, and it takes an amazing amount of precision to use more than one, let alone to control individual parts of a human-resembling body with extra  _compartments._ The Sunagakure forces could devastate a platoon with more shinobi because of their puppets."

' **... I'm following.'**

"Right, so—the puppeteering is favoured because Sunagakure is in the Land of the Wind, which has a lot of scorpion and poisonous flowers and stuff, so the puppets are an effective way of administering that poison without endangering themselves. Um, the perfect offense and defense in one, yes? But chakra strings aren't  _limited_ to the puppets. We just haven't been creative enough to think of what else they can be used for,"

' **And you are? Creative enough, that is?'**

Rin flushed. "Not—not yet, but that's not the pressing matter anyway. First, I have to learn how to do them, and then learn how to do a lot of them at the same time.  _Then_ I can start thinking about new applications,"

Isobu asked, ' **Why not just learn Puppeteering? If it ain't broke…'**

"It doesn't suit my fighting style,"

' **You have a fighting style?'**

" _Yes._ It's called, 'minimal'."

' **That's cowardice, isn't it?'**

"I'm a pacifist!"

' **If you say so… you should learn something cooler than chakra strings, though. How's your throwing?'**

"Terrible. Why?"

' **As my partner, you have the ability to use my coral and foam in your jutsu. As you well know, coral is not pleasant to be hit with. As long as you didn't embarrass me, you could use it as a projectile as well. Area of effect jutsu, too.'**

Rin clapped. "That's amazing—" Wait, onlookers. ' _That's amazing, Isobu-kun. Your mist acts as a hallucinogenic too, doesn't it? Does that mean you're good at genjutsu?'_

Isobu nodded. ' **Only the Uchiha can break my illusions, and not even that clan can read the heart of a person the way I can. Are you saying you want to learn?'**

' _If you wouldn't mind. The more I know, the better. My arsenal of jutsu is kind of pathetic right now. Take what I can get. I'm good with poisons already. And I still have my medical knowledge, wherever that becomes relevant.'_

' **Senbon for acupuncture,'** Isobu said simply, ' **since you're a coward.'**

' _Pacifist, Isobu-kun.'_

' **Whatever, same thing anyway, Puny-Rin! Don't forget your water jutsu. You have Foam Release to work on as well, and with my chakra connected to your chakra, you can create water out of nothing.'**

Oh, yeah. ' _I get to use all of your fancy tricks as well, don't I, Isobu-kun?'_

' **I'll show you how to use my shell,'**

' _Yay!'_

' **But I'm not showing you how I teleport.'**

' _That's fine, we don't have to share everythin_ — _you can teleport?'_

' **I'm not showing you how.'**

' _SINCE WHEN HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO DO THAT?!'_

' **That's not for you to know. Focus, Puny-Rin! You need to find a weapon that will conduct my chakra, withstand the spontaneous growth of coral, and direct my water attacks.'**

Rin whimpered. Teleportation. Surely he was kidding, right? ' _Where am I going to find a weapon like that?'_

' **... Step back,'** Rin took a step back, somewhat confused. Then she lost control of her body and things made a bit of sense. Isobu sat down and squinted at the dirty road in intense concentration. Rin wanted to know what he was trying to achieve but didn't want to risk disturbing him, so she watched him watch the pebbles and drew upon her saint-like patience.

Isobu seemed to reach a decision. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again, and started to hack, as if he was choking on something. ' _Isobu-kun, are you alright?!'_ Could Rin perform the Heimlich maneuver if her own body was the one that was choking?

Isobu mentally waved her away impatiently and continued to cough his lungs out. Rin fretted in the back of their mind, wanting desperately for him to stop destroying her throat. Isobu slammed his hand against his chest—with one final gag, a…  _lot_ of sea foam streamed from Isobu's throat.

And it just kept coming.

Rin's concerned disgust distracted her from the fact that the foam wasn't just splashing across the ground: it was solidifying into a shape. An elongated one, like a staff or a club with wicked barbs and hooks from either end and the sides—it was as if the sharp coral was a substitute for a bladed weapon.

At least swords cut cleanly. A coral-weapon would be messy, and it would  _tear. Ouch._

Isobu coughed a few more times before he was done. The foam indeed solidified into exactly what it looked like it would be: a staff-like weapon morphed with wicked-looking coral. It was multi-colored in random patches, pink, yellow, purple, and orange the primary ones. Altogether, bright and unforgiving.

Rin gulped. That looked like it would hurt to hold.

" **It will,"** Isobu assured her before he returned control of her body to her. ' **I'm going to mess up your hands** — **don't you dare heal them.'**

Rin blinked. "What?" Her hand grabbed the coral staff. It hurt just as she expected it to, and tore up her soft skin instantly. " _Ow,_ Isobu-kun! Why?!"

' **Being my jinchuuriki and this weapon being a product purely of my own chakra, you'll have a slight immunity to my coral. One which you can build upon to complete immunity. Once you do that, you can use the weapon in combat. See? Cool, right?'**

It hurt!

"Can't I use something else?"

' **No. And don't let go of the staff until I tell you to!'**

Rin sighed but did not argue. "I don't know bōjutsu."

Isobu didn't mind. ' **You will learn. I'm gonna teach you, so don't worry about any of the jinchuuriki abilities. Focus on your dumb coward ones first. You won't be able to do a simple Water Mirror Technique with your control as it is right now.'**

Rin closed her eyes. 'Simple Water Mirror Technique,' he said, as if Rin was not very aware of that that technique was A-ranked and out of her previous-capabilities. Either Isobu had no idea how powerful he was, or he was screwing with her.

Either way, the next few years were going to be  _torture._

* * *

They were.

Luckily, Rin thrived in the hellish conditions she set upon herself! As expected of someone like her, under pressure, her hands did not shake. There were growing pains that came with the cultivation of her present skills and an even worse ache that came with learning completely new things, such as bōjutsu and all of Isobu's fancy water techniques.

To Rin's complete lack of surprise, improving her accuracy was tedious and boring. No one liked throwing needles in the same place over and over, and in the end Rin was forced to settle for mediocrity in this field. Besides, she never intended on mastering all her studies—being a jack of all trades was better than being the master of one.

Rin's chakra control was kinder to her. The results of her relentless training to keep her chakra from acting like a wild animal were successful. On top of regaining her tree and water walking capabilities, Rin's Mystic Palm jutsu was no longer overpowered and didn't send her patients into a coma-like state.

Also,  _chakra strings._

Did you know that you could combine the dissecting power of a chakra scalpel with chakra strings? Rin knew...  _Rin knew._

Having a deeper arsenal of jutsu meant nothing if she couldn't test them in combat. Besides, she needed an income. Rin was now a self-employed shinobi—otherwise known as a mercenary, or a nukenin if you were braver. She took the odd job from whatever town she stopped by. If she really liked someone, she made sure they has a way of contacting her. It was a way to get her name out there.

Rin already has a reputation as a kind, capable fighter who kept casualties to an absolute low. Her clients were assured by her presence; when you traveled with Rin, you knew that no one died.

Not counting the enemy. They died. In the kindest ways Rin was capable of. Pressure points, medically-induced sleep followed by a drowning, drug overdose, a quick kunai across the throat. Rin's kills were fast and quiet and  _clean_ ; there was none of Kakashi's lightning or Obito's scorching flames or Minato-sensei's Bingo Book-level teleportation.

It just  _was._ Rin was not making a production of their lives like that.

Honestly Rin was a bit more popular with civilians than expected. She  _was_ more approachable than others, but still. She wasn't used to all the attention.

And if she was being honest, she didn't mind it either. It was a guilty pleasure that way, but considering who Rin's team was, she didn't think it was entirely evil of her to enjoy being the focus in a way she wasn't usually. Besides, she was using her reputation to help others, so she wasn't being  _greedy_ , was she?

* * *

Convoy missions were boring, and incidentally, Rin's favourite type of mission. A carry-over from her (now previous) medic career: Boring is best. A merchant needed an escort into the Land of Snow, and she was the most efficient bodyguard he could find with rates that wouldn't leave him bankrupt at the end of the job. Rin welcomed the work—it had been a slow couple of weeks, she could use the excuse.

Her client was a thin man by the name of Toshiyuki who made a living selling weapons that his blacksmith older brother, Yuri, produced from their home in the Land of Grass. Not a man with much significance dogging his heals, the most fascinating part of him was his long goatee—the cause of a great deal of amusement for Rin and Isobu; they both liked the way it looked when Toshiyuki mansplained his merchandise.

Really, as if Rin didn't know how to take care of a well-made blade. She used to be a shinobi. Everyone knew that. Why on earth did Toshiyuki feel the need to explain this stuff to her?

It had been two and a half weeks since she accepted this client. Rin and Toshiyuki had just passed the border into the Land of Snow, and he was showcasing to her a set of bronze tomahawks. Yes,  _bronze_.

"Toshiyuki-san," said Rin in a Very Patient tone, "I assure you, I know how tomahawks work and don't need a demonstration from you."

"Psh! This isn't anything like those shuriken or senbon that you favor; this is sophisticated work, artistry of the metal, and I guarantee that you have never seen a weapon with as much destructive power as  _this_ bad boy! And you see with the way Yuri worked the bronze, your weapon will never lose its shine, appealing to your aesthetic requirements—"

Rin closed her eyes. Isobu groaned from the depth of her mind. ' **Humans. You think you know everything.** '

Usually, Rin did her best not to encourage that kind of negative mentality. But in desperate situations such as this, it was all she could do to not agree with him. Two and a half weeks. Sixteen days and sixteen nights of this. If Rin were a lesser person without such a saintly patience, she might have figured out a way to permanently silence the man.

' _You need the money, Rin_ ,' she thought desperately. Toshiyuki had put away the tomahawks, catching onto her disinterest with the weapon, and was rifling through his pack for something more 'feminine,' as he'd described it. ' _You need the money. You need to finish this job. You need to deliver this client to his destination, and that's all. No blood.'_

' **Not even a little bit of blood?'**

' _None, Isobu-kun. We need him._ '

Isobu's sigh was bereft, and for a moment, Rin understood him on a deeply spiritual level. Toshiyuki presented to her what he claimed was a weaponized fan for the standard kunoichi. "It's very sharp," He told her, unfolding it with flourish. "See, even the paper—ouch! Ah, the proof is right here!"

"You gave yourself a papercut, Toshiyuki-san."

"Because the weapon is so  _sharp_ , Mercenary-chan! It's expert craftsmanship!"

Rin flattened her mouth and glanced at him from the corner of her eyes: he had stuck his cut finger in his mouth, tears in his eyes. The fan had been thrown back into the cart. She wouldn't be surprised if he 'accidentally' threw it into their fire tonight. Hopefully, he would be dropped off at his destination and she wouldn't have to find out.

The finger left his mouth with an audible pop, and she could hear him whispering to himself. The longer it went on, the less concerned Rin became with maintaining her reputation as a bodyguard who didn't kill her clients. ' **Make it stop,'** Isobu begged. Toshiyuki sounded like he was going to cry. ' **I grow tired of this man. End him. Puny-Rin, I order you!'**

' _This is a partnership, Isobu-kun.'_

' **I ordered you nicely, didn't I?'**

Rin wasn't even going to get into it. She stopped, the cart that she was pulling alongside her rattling to a halt as well. Toshiyuki was so concerned with his cut that he continued until he collided with his cart, a startled yelp falling from his lips. He turned to her, eyes wild with paranoia, and said, "Are we under attack?!"

They'd been attacked by a few desperate bandits earlier in the journey. It was nothing Rin couldn't handle, but Toshiyuki lost a few years of his life from fear in the aftermath. "Does your finger hurt?"

The reedy man lifted his hairy chin. Rin's eyes watched the way the goatee bobbed up and town with great interest. "There's no need for your concern, young girl! I assure you that I can deal with my wound, it's a hazard of the job, I'm afraid. My hands are littered with scars born from mishandling my brother's weapons!"

' **He shouldn't be proud of that.'**

"I can heal it, Toshiyuki-san."

Toshiyuki stared. "No you can't," He sounded offended by the idea. "Only shinobi can—wait, don't tell me..."

"I am. Literally everyone knows this, Toshiyuki-san. When you were referred to me, did no one mention my former occupation?" Judging by Toshiyuki's bulging eyes, no one had. Rin held out her hand and twinkled her fingers. Numbly, the man laid his finger on her palm, choking when she healed the small wound. "How does it feel?"

"M-Much better. I didn't… you were a shinobi? Of what village?"

"That doesn't matter," Rin replied, short.

Of course it mattered, but it hadn't been long since the war's conclusion and there was still bad blood. She'd escorted clients from the Land of Stone who would have never accepted her services if they had known that she used to serve Konoha; that she might have killed someone they knew. Better to keep her affiliations to herself.

Toshiyuki swallowed, nodded, and reclaimed his hand. He squinted at his finger with sharp interest. When Rin started moving again, he fell into step behind her without another word. He didn't try to sell her a weapon either, something she was grateful for. She  _did_ notice that he took care to stand back further than he did earlier, but Rin kept the observation to herself: there was no telling what kind of history Toshiyuki had with shinobi—any civilian would be wary.

After a period of blissful silence, Toshiyuki worked up the nerve to address her. "Might I ask how you're able to pull the cart through the heavy snow, shinobi-san?"

"I'm not a shinobi anymore, you don't have to call me that," Rin then followed that with: "I'm using chakra."

"...Chakra. That's real?"

"Yes, Toshiyuki-san."

"What—what is it?"

Rin tilted her head, looking back at him over her shoulder. The look on her face shut him up. "It's not something I should be telling you about in great deal, Toshiyuki-san. I hope you don't mind. Village secrets, and whatnot."

Besides, if Rin went around telling  _all_ her clients about how to access their chakra, she wouldn't have a business to begin with.

"I… I understand. I'm not going to be—you know, because I asked, will I?"

' **We'd be so lucky!'**

"You'll be fine, Toshiyuki-san," Rin reassured him, careful to keep her voice light and soothing. His relief was palpable. "All you have to worry about is getting where you need to be. You're safe."

"That's nice to hear, Mercenary-san. Since you aren't a part of your village anymore, does that mean you need someone to supply your weapons?" Toshiyuki sounded rejuvenated all of a sudden, and in unison, Rin and Isobu groaned. "I'm sure I could convince my brother to give you a discount on all his items!"

Nothing Rin said would convinced Toshiyuki that she didn't require his services, and she resigned herself to trudging through the snow with two burdens on her shoulders instead of simply the cart. Isobu clicked his tongue. ' **This is why we aren't nice to strangers, Puny-Rin. They get ideas above their station!'**

Rin was never going to regret her knee-jerk reaction towards compassion, but Isobu… certainly was making a good argument for himself. It was a dreadful trip; when Rin arrived at Toshiyuki's cousin's house, she gladly dumped her load and turned to her client with her hand out. He thanked her repeatedly for what she'd done for him and _finally paid her_. She plastered a smile on her face. "Of course, Toshiyuki-san. Take care of yourself."

"I will! Oh, and before you leave, take this!" He pushed the hand-fan he demonstrated earlier into her hands. "Free of charge!"

Isobu perked up. ' **Please let me destroy that.'**

' _That would be rude,'_ Rin replied, stashing the fan in her back pocket. Maybe she'd keep it around. She never knew when her next trip to Suna would be, and a fan was always helpful to tolerate the dry air. "Goodbye, Toshiyuki-san!"

Isobu kept a steady commentary as she leaped across rooftops towards the border. It was exhilarating to travel at her preferred speed again: civilians were so  _slow_. '— **I just think that it would be very therapeutic for the both of us if you allowed me to dispose of any and all reminders of that man's temporary presence in our lives! You're the one who's always nagging me about having a 'healthy outlet for my stress!''**

' _That's because your usual way of venting involves wrestling control of my body from me so you can sit at the bottom of a lake for three years.'_

' **It's an effective destressor. You should try it.'**

Rin had. She was there with Isobu. It wasn't as fun for her as it had been for him. ' _I just think it would be rude to get rid of a gift he gave us in good faith, don't you thi—'_

That's when she registers the explosion: not one of fire and smoke, but of chakra. It bled into the air, heavy and thick and Sage, how could this be? The Land of Snow had no shinobi academy, there was no way for civilians to know where to begin with opening their chakra channels! And Rin was not a sensor—if there was enough in the air that  _she_ could feel it, that meant—

Isobu had calmed in her mind, a still reflection over deep water. ' **A bloodline?'**

' _No way,_ ' Rin dismissed immediately. She changed her course toward the open wound of chakra; there could be an attack on this civilian village, and she'd help if she was able. ' _Kiri wiped all those families out. If any survived, I doubt they'd show-off like this.'_

' **Humans are foolish, prideful little worms,'** said Isobu, and his mental focus blurred into hers until her instincts sharpened like she was about to jump into battle. ' **It wouldn't surprise me to find it's just someone showing off, threat of execution be damned.'**

Truthfully, it wouldn't surprise Rin either. She'd grown up in the same village as the Uchiha and Hyuuga clan. Bloodlines did funny things to a person's thinking. ' _Let's hope it isn't anything serious,_ ' Rin thought, not very convinced that the situation could be so easily handled. She really wasn't a talented sensor, and this was  _a lot_ of chakra. A dangerous amount. The culprit was either a powerful shinobi or a prodigious child unlocking something they couldn't control.

Such a thing was never without consequences.

Isobu directed her to take a left. From there, Rin didn't need his expert navigation. The house was recognisable from a great distance: the ice had punctured through multiple places in the ceiling, nearly tearing the house a part. Were she close enough, Rin didn't doubt that she'd see the crumbling walls, smell the blood. There was no way to avoid casualties. The placement of the ice alone…

' **They're concentrated,'** Isobu noted. Rin agreed. ' **Targeted. This was an attack.'**

A trained shinobi would not risk exposure with such an attack within Kirigakure's reach. An Ice bloodline could easily be honed for subtler approaches. The odds tipped further in favour of their culprit being a child. Still, Rin hoped it wasn't. If she had to put down a feral child—well, she wouldn't be happy if that was necessary.

Rin landed in the snow softly, ears strained to listen for movement. She could hear crying: but was it from pain, or something else?

Whatever it was, someone was alive in there. Rin went in through a hole in the wall, ducking under a large spike of ice to manage. The first thing she saw in the darkened room was a body, punctured clear through by an icicle. Narrowing her eyes, Rin saw that all of the spikes had claimed a life. That was… interesting. This was a lot of armed men to squeeze inside of one house.

The sniffling grew louder. Rin eyed the ice critically— _pumped_ full of chakra—and tucked away her kunai. Isobu squawked. ' **Did you just** _ **disarm**_ **yourself?!'**

Rin waved him away impatiently. ' _Shh, Isobu-kun. I still have the staff.'_

' **Don't you dare shush me, Puny-Rin!'**

But shushed he was. Rin passed another corpse: a woman with dark hair and a scream frozen on her face, a knife in her chest. Tears were frozen on her cheeks. The crying abruptly stopped, and when Rin turned to her right, she found the origin of all this death. It was a child with long brown hair, curled in the corner of the room like he was trying to disappear into the shadows. His face was a mess of snot and tears, and his eyes—red-rimmed, terrified, paranoid—urged her to raise her hands in surrender.

A child, like she'd thought. Attacked in his own home. Judging by the resemblance, the woman had been his mother. He'd witnessed her death. Panicked. The emotional response would have triggered his bloodline limit to jump to his defense. Assuming that he'd inherited the ability from his mother, then this attack could have been a continuation of the bloodline limit purge.

Self-defense was the likely motivator.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Rin told him, hands steady in the air. The boy sucked in a trembling breath, watching her like a cornered animal. "I felt the chakra. I came to investigate. I thought I could help if a civilian was being attacked, offer some healing."

The child said nothing. His hands, besieged by terrible tremors (shock was more than likely), curled into fists. The crying had stopped: he was too keyed up for it, she guessed. Rin smiled, found that it wasn't too hard at all. "Can you tell me what happened here?"

When he didn't respond, Rin nodded. "I see. Can I tell you what I think happened? Are you okay with that?" Hearing no rejection, she continued: "I think that woman is your mother. And that some bad people came into your home and hurt her. I think it scared you—and I don't blame you, I swear, I don't blame you at all—and that made you want to hurt those bad people back. I think this ice comes naturally to you, and in your panic, you couldn't help it; that's why it's so powerful, you see? You had no control. That's okay. When people are scared, their body does things without talking to the head first. It isn't your fault. You were just… scared, right?"

The child stopped holding his knees to his chest, bottom lip caught between his teeth. "...I didn't have a choice."

The sound of his voice—high-pitched and shaking—stole the breath from Rin. It'd been awhile since she'd dealt with upset children. Even in the war, she'd stayed back with the boys while Minato-sensei calmed down the civilians. He was the best at things like that. It's why he was going to make such a great Hokage, should have been on the seat for years and years and ye—

' _Focus, Rin_.  _Focus.'_

"I know you didn't. These men, they broke into your house and hurt your mom. You had to protect her."

He shook his head. "I— I didn't— Mom was already—" He covered his face and sobbed. "Dad had already… and he was coming for  _me_ , and… he  _killed my mom_ —"

"Was it because of the ice?" Rin asked, and the boy flinched violently, head snapping up to watch her. He looked on the verge of a panic attack. She'd be worried about one of those spikes coming down and finishing her off if she wasn't so sure that he'd already exhausted his chakra supply. "The Purge… Did these people attack you and your mother because of what you can do with the ice?"

Mutely, he nodded.

"Then they deserved it," Rin sent the body closest to the boy a filthy look. She wasn't Kirigakure's biggest fan to begin with—and here, Isobu called, ' **Who in this room is?'** —but the bloodline purge had always bothered her. In an occupation that demanded she participate in a never ending cycle of meaningless violence, the Mizukage's campaign to extinguish bloodline limits within the Land of Water had disgusted and frightened her to her very core. That much death, for such a  _fickle reason_ —it was against nature.

It could have been Obito, she'd thought. It could have been his entire clan, wiped out in a night. The Hyuuga as well. They were jerks, but they didn't deserve to die just because they  _might_ pose a threat to the reigning Kage.

They were still  _people_.

"They… they did?"

"You were protecting yourself. You and your mother did nothing wrong! Absolutely nothing to deserve that you be hunted down and executed like— _ugh_!" Rin breathed deeply, needing a moment to orient herself. This wasn't the time for a tirade. "You had to. It's their fault that they didn't have enough kindness in their hearts to spare you the pain of this.  _Their_ fault, little boy, not yours. I can promise you that much."

He stared at her in blank shock.

Then he vomited down the front of his shirt, and began to sob.

"My mom— he killed my mom, he... I didn't, I didn't want to, I was just — it's  _all my fault_!" Manic. Rin moved quickly to his side, cringing as she pulled him into her side and felt some of his sick on her outfit. She was a medic, gross bodily fluids were a part of the game, but she wasn't a medic anymore and this was—unfortunate.

But then the boy clutched at her clothes and cried into her stomach, heartbroken and lost, and thoughts of laundry vanished.

She rubbed her hand up and down his back and soothed him with pleasantries. She reminded him that it was okay now, there was no more danger, it wasn't his fault. His mother isn't hurting anymore, she's at peace in the Pure Lands. She wouldn't be disappointed with him. She loved him, and didn't blame him. It wasn't his fault. He's forgiven. It wasn't his fault.

He cried himself to sleep in her arms. Rin left him in the corner wrapped in her haori, and regarded the ruined house. ' **Well,'**  said Isobu, ' **let's go.'**

She sighed sharply. ' _Isobu-kun, we can't leave him here alone. His entire world has ended. He has no one to take care of him.'_

' **So what? That isn't our problem.'**

' _I just don't feel comfortable leaving him alone…'_

' **He'll figure something out,'** He said dismissively. Rin hummed absently, not thinking much of anything. Yet, Isobu roused to life as if she had suggested something outrageous. ' **No. I know what you're thinking, and** _ **no**_ **. I don't want him. The boy can figure something out for himself!'**

Rin used a chakra scalpel (with the assistance of Isobu's chakra, as her own didn't seem to be enough) to cut through the ice and dislodge the men. One by one she dragged them out of the house. ' _He doesn't have anyone else, Isobu-kun, and I just soothed him to sleep. I can't leave him now!'_

' **Tell those maternal instincts of yours to** _ **go away**_ **! It's crowded enough!'**

' _Isobu-kun… you're being a brat.'_

' **I. Don't. Want. Him.'**

Once all the men are outside, Rin set them alight. Toasty. Besides, she figured the kid would appreciate not waking up to their accusing lifeless faces looking at him. ' _I don't know what to tell you, Isobu-kun. I'm not leaving him behind. I refuse to.'_

' **Puny-Rin!'**

' _Isobu-kun! If I find a nice place to drop him off, I'll do that, but for now_ — _he comes. Got it?'_

Isobu snarled in worldless frustration. She wasn't surprised when he disappeared out of her head. Good. She didn't want to talk to him when he was being dumb and possessive anyway. Put-out, Rin kicked some snow. Why did Isobu have to  _be like this_?

' _Whatever,'_  She thought viciously. ' _Who cares what he thinks? I'm not leaving the kid alone. That's cruel.'_ Obito would be so disappointed in her if she did. And if Obito was disappointed, it meant that it was truly a cruel, devilish act.

And no offense to Isobu, but in a competition of who she would rather use as a moral compass, Obito easily came out on top.

' _So suck it!'_


	5. Chapter 5

 

**Precision Work**

— **V** —

* * *

 

The boy didn’t resist when Rin packed up his meager belongings, nor did he provide her with information regarding surviving family he could stay with. Try as she might, he refused to answer _any_ of her questions, leaving Rin to feel like she was treading the deep, morally ambiguous waters of what was technically a kidnapping.

Isobu was quiet, had been since last night, but she thought she felt his pleasure anyway. Her mind was in turmoil about what she was doing. He was thrilled about it.

Screw Isobu, anyway.

 _‘I can’t leave him alone,’_ She reminded herself. It was a mantra. The boy was untrained, orphaned, and so, so young. There was no way he’d survive by himself in any country, let alone _this_ one.

Rin wasn’t heartless. Despite whatever argument could be made against her actions, there wasn’t no other way to navigate the situation. Not humanely.

He watched her pack the last of his clothes with a vacant gaze. Rin hoped he wasn’t offended by what she was doing. Or afraid. As soon as he worked through his shock and was able to communicate with her, she’d grab his opinion. If he wanted to go it alone, she’d let him. He wasn’t a prisoner.

“Chibi, can you stand?” In absence of a name, Rin had taken to calling him ‘chibi’. Not the most original nickname to give a child, but cut the girl some slack.

The boy didn’t budge. He was wrapped in Rin’s haori still, hadn’t made a move to take it off, and Rin left it on him. He was small. He needed the warmth more.

“We need to leave soon, kiddo. Do you understand?” Still nothing. Rin kneeled in front of him, keeping her body language disarming and non-threatening. “I’m going to grab your hands, okay? I want you to squeeze once for yes, twice for no. Can you stand?”

He looked at their hands like he didn’t recognize them. Regardless, after a repeat, he squeezed twice.

Rin hummed. Progress. “Good boy. Would you like me to carry you on my back?”

Another long pause. One squeeze.

Seemed like their belongings were going into a sealing scroll. She stocked on them before taking the convoy mission, she was sure she had spares. Large enough to fit a few packs, easy.

“Last question, Chibi. Be honest with me. Do you want to come with me?” The boy glanced up at her warily, a shadow clouding the complicated expression on his face. She waited, but he didn’t squeeze her fingers. “You don’t have to. I want you to know that I’m not forcing you. But you’re a child, and with your parents… Honestly, I’d feel better if I could keep you at my side until I know for certain you’d be safe without me. Does that make sense?”

He swallowed harshly, the sound loud in the eerily silent house. It was empty, and the snowy village was always quiet. The snowfall was consistent and soft, never violent unless there was a rare storm.

One squeeze. So soft that it barely registered.

Rin smiled at him, pleased. It was hard, she knew. Trauma patients were unpredictable. One patient was never the same as another. There were guidelines on how to deal with it, but of course you had to be flexible with them. People’s minds worked differently. Rin had treated fully grown jonin who went catatonic for days after a particularly traumatic event, such as the death of a squad or being liberated from a foreign policy’s interrogation room. The fact that Chibi was not only listening, but responding to her questions, was nothing short of outstanding.

 _‘The natural plasticity of a child’s mind has always been something to witness,’_ She thought. It’s why shinobi started out young. There was no better time to learn.

“Do you want to come with me?” Rin asked, and he lifted his head to scrutinize her. Searching for the danger, for the lie. Unless he could scan Isobu’s intentions from her eyes alone, he wouldn’t find any intent to harm. It wasn’t there.

She said, “I want to help you. Please believe me.”

And then, after one of the longest, strained pauses Rin thought she had ever experienced—

A squeeze.

Except this time, he didn’t release the pressure.

He held on, tighter and tighter until his knuckles were white and her near-frostbitten fingers lost what feeling was left. Rin opened her mouth to say something, anything that might comfort him, but changed her mind when he hiccuped. His breathing turned irregular; hitched and watery, marking the beginning of another episode.

Isobu thrummed with disgust at the sight of the boy’s running nose. Rin mentally kicked him until he kept to his own side of her mind.

When Rin used to cry like this, her mother or father (or both, on the bad days) would pull her into their arms and rock her slowly to sleep. She felt like a baby, but in their eyes, that was true. Their fingers in her hair, tugging through clumps of blood. Her mother sometimes stripped her of her dirty clothing and wrapped her in a warm blanket that smelled of detergent and fabric softener. Rin was swaddled with familiar smells and familiar touches until she came down from the peak. Her parents were a gentle hand at her elbow, not tugging, not pulling — simply there to remind her that someone was.

The boy needed that. And Rin couldn’t give it to him exactly, but...

 _‘Doesn’t hurt to try._ ’

She collected the boy’s stray limbs and pulled him into her arms. He trembled against her collarbone, lost in misery and robbed of his innocence.

There was no way she could walk away from this.

* * *

 

If Rin had it her way, she’d be out of the country and surrounding lands swiftly, missing the warmth and humidity of home. As it stood, she had a traumatized kid glued to her and no idea about how to take care of him. He wasn’t a patient. He was a little boy.

And Rin was on the edge of eighteen years old. She wasn’t prepared in the slightest.

Her destination was set: a place with people who _could_ give her information. Rin ran into the night, pushing her limits as far as she could go. As a mercenary, she hadn’t been challenged the same way a shinobi lifestyle did, so her stamina was a little low. That was embarrassing.

 _‘I used to be able to go days without sleeping_ ,’ The kunoichi thought bitterly, setting up the perimeter traps around her camp. _‘Now look at me. Kakashi-kun would be so upset if he were here._ ’

He never liked it when Rin held the team back. He was a genius, and Rin simply wasn’t. It wasn’t unusual for Kakashi to lose patience with her slow progress; even less unusual for Obito to passionately leap to her defense, yelling about how if everyone could be a stuck-up prodigy like him, Kakashi wouldn’t be so special in the first place.

_“If we were equal, no one would know your name! So why don’t you be grateful the rest of us can’t put you in your place because it won’t be that way forever; I’ll get you back for every time you’ve been an asshole to Rin if it’s the last thing I do!”_

Obito had always overreacted whenever he saw her upset. His protective instinct towards her often lined up with his natural rivalry with Kakashi, and set up their team for a lot of unnecessary conflict. Rin had to act as a mediator more times than she could count, but she was never as effective as Minato, who Kakashi at least respected.

The thought of her oldest friend sent a pang through her heart, a feeling like molasses coming down over her head, dripping slowly, making her feel cold and heavy and slow.

She missed him. All of them.

Rin shook her head, admonishing herself for getting lost in her thoughts. Chibi was waiting for her at camp and did not need her dawdling on the traps. She tied off the snare, covered the contraption with leaves and dirt, and went back to the fire she could see through the trees.

Chibi was where she left him; swallowed by her haori, sitting next to the fire, eyeing the rabbits roasting on a stick. He licked his lips.

“They should be ready,” said Rin. “Would you like some?”

Chibi nodded furiously. He’d eaten nuts and snacks on the way, but nothing large enough to substitute a real meal. “You must be starving,” Rin muttered, taking the food out of the fire and handing one stick to Chibi, who tore into it. “Sorry, I didn’t realize.”

Damn it. Of course he was hungry. She made a note: three meals a day. He was still growing. Even if it put them behind schedule, she’d make an effort to stop and feed him three times a day.

They sat mostly in silence as they ate. It was strange for Rin; usually, she had Isobu ranting about something or rather, threatening her with migraines as he ranted about how much he hated oil and boats and anything that ruined the pristine nature of the oceans. Since he was upset with her, he was giving her the cold shoulder.

It was kind of lonely.

 _‘Isobu-kun?’_ She asked, mentally poking him. _‘Can we talk?’_

Isobu did the equivalent of rolling over, showing her his back. He was such a child.

_‘I think we need to have a conversation. Ignoring me isn’t going to—’_

**‘Go away!’**

_‘Isobu-kun…’_

He blew a raspberry at her. A _raspberry_. Oh, that turtle! Rin fumed at his immaturity, barely resisting the urge to do something equally as embarrassing, and left him to sulk. See if she cared. There were more proactive things to do.

Such as attend to the child in her care. Rin, still pouting, watched as he shifted closer to the fire. He’d polished off his rabbit and was reaching for the squirrel, an extra bit of food that she usually kept for herself: a snack for the day.

However, he was skin and bone. Rin had protein bars. She could get by on them. Tomorrow, she’d just make sure to bring back more game so they could both eat to their heart’s content.

The heat of an open flame caused him to snatch his hand back — not burnt, but wary. Rin watched him with growing amusement as his fingers tentatively moved forward, slow, like he was sneaking up on live prey, before snatching the stick, quick as he could.

He triumphantly ate his prize, absently bringing the haori closer to his body. He was more expressive today. He’d had the entire journey to process. A child could endure a lot of horrors; she was sure he was working through it already, compartmentalizing, or simply distracting himself. She wouldn’t know until she asked.

Later, maybe. He looked content. She didn’t want to ruin it. 'On another note: _I’ll need to buy him clothes.’_

She’d packed what she could, but Chibi didn’t come from a rich family. His clothes, though threadbare, were fit for the cold of his snowy home. Rin mainly operated in the more humid climates as they were familiar lands to her. Generally, she tried to avoid the Land of Water.

Yes, shopping was vital. He’d get sick as he was. “Hey Chibi,” Rin called. Chibi tensed at her voice, chewing madly on his mouthful of squirrel. His eyes were so big. “Wanna go to town?”

He shrugged.

“I think it’ll be good for us.” She carried on. “Besides, if I don’t have you dressed up by the time we reach our destination… I’ll be in big trouble.”

At the thought of _her_ reaction to Chibi wearing what could generously be called rags, Rin shuddered. She’d be horrified, and Rin would be the one getting in trouble. She could part with some yen if it meant _surviving_.

“Maybe… hmm, after we leave this country… I think I can manage it...”

Chibi, unconcerned, went right back to his squirrel.

* * *

 

The closest town was Samani, a moderately sized village near the harbour Rin and Chibi’s boat put them. “Halfway there,” Rin cooed sympathetically, rubbing Chibi’s back as they exited the vessel. She waved at the captain, a former client of hers who had been happy to make the trip for a discounted fee, before turning her attention back to Chibi.

Seasick. She would have never guessed.

“I know, I know, it’s rough. Chew on this, it’ll make you feel better,” She always carried ginger around for nausea, and was glad about it. Chibi shoved the herb in his mouth, chewing miserably, face a rather sickening mixture of pale and green.

Once she saw him struggle to take a few steps, she asked, “Wanna piggy-back ride?”

His hand found hers, squeezing once.

On her back he went. If she wasn’t careful, it would become a habit. _‘I could always consider it strength training,_ ’ Rin mused. She didn’t mind carrying him. After everything he went through, it was the least she could offer.

Samani wasn’t busy, per se, although the streets were bustling. It was active, and seemed to be sectioned off to separate civilian and shinobi wares. Saminari was a coastal town, situated on an unclaimed peninsula. Because it bordered the Land of Fire but didn’t belong to any country, there were plenty of Kirigakure shinobi wandering around.

Rin didn’t know their intentions, sure, but these were shinobi from a country that had attempted to kill her and destroy her village. On top of that, if they knew what Chibi was capable of, he’d be in mortal danger.

Chibi buried his face in the back of her neck. He’d seen the shinobi. His fear became palpable.

Her hands were on his knees, keeping them around her waist. She tapped them, keeping the touch light and jovial. “I gotcha, Chibi,” She murmured, side-eyeing the closest threat. “We’ll just have to shop in the civilian sector, won’t we?”

That was doable. Chibi didn’t need shinobi-grade _anything_ : He wasn’t exactly joining her in fights.

“How do you feel about brown, kid? Like it?” Chibi made an ambiguous noise that she translated as, ‘get me away from the people who slaughtered my clan’ which was, like, fair enough. “We’ll try it out, see what suits you.”

Turns out, Chibi wasn’t a difficult shopper: in that he didn’t hate what Rin picked out for him. Short and long pants, a few pairs of plain t-shirts, underwear, a few light coats — necessities, all in dark muddy colors. She ended up buying a pack of hairbands. She had her own but they broke easily, and Chibi needed his own store to break into since he _definitely_ didn’t want a haircut.

After she had him all dressed up, they stopped by a shinobi supply store for rations and pills, then set off.

“You’re going to like them,” She assured the child on her back (yeah, definitely becoming a habit). “But don’t worry so much if you don’t, because I know that they’re going to _love_ you.”

* * *

 

A couple days later, Chibi still wasn’t talking. Rin didn’t let it discourage her: he was making sounds, at least, so there was communication. She was getting good at figuring out what he wanted based on the tone of his grunts and the looseness of his shrugs.

Unfortunately, it was hard to brag about it when the only person she could do it to was ignoring her.

 _‘You’re not an example of maturity right now,’_ She told Isobu. She told him something along that line everyday.

 **‘I don’t care,’** replied Isobu. He typically responded like that with slight variance in his word choice. Occasionally, he went into detail about how worthless Chibi was as a person, a mere blob in the span of the universe, a worm compared to a god, et cetera, et cetera. Rin ignored him. It was a tantrum, plain and simple.

He’d get over it eventually. He couldn’t be mad at her forever. It had been a week — she missed him, but until he understood that his behavior towards Chibi wasn’t going to fly, she’d gladly let him sulk.

Chibi was walking next to her, hand in hers. With her back free, she had her club-slash-staff thing within arms reach as opposed to sealed away, as it was whenever Chibi wanted a piggy-back (often). Rin was telling him about Team Seven, redacting details like surnames, anything related to Konoha, and Minato-sensei’s name. Chibi probably wouldn’t recognize the name of a foreign Kage but it never hurt to be safe.

She wasn’t sure, but she thought Chibi was kind of entertained by her stories. He perked up when she told him about Obito. He laughed once during a tale about Obito’s antics; she wasn’t surprised.

Obito had that effect on people. Her, most of all.

“Aunt Namori wasn’t going to let him get away with trashing her store, even accidentally, and started storming towards him, broom in hand — I should mention that she has this back injury, hereditary, I checked once, and she has this hunchback, so she’s absolutely tiny, while Obito’s just gone through a growth spurt and is towering over her — but he looks terrified of this miniature old woman, and —”

There was a sound like something shifting in the bushes surrounding the path. If Rin didn’t know the forest and its natural activity like the back of her hand, it might have been too subtle for her to catch.

Interesting.

 **‘Head’s up,’** said her friend, voice bored. **‘Left.’**

Rin threw her senses out in the direction Isobu named, hearing nothing but plants and nature.

_‘I don’t — oh!’_

An erratic blur of movement, shuriken propelled out of the bushes _to her right._ There was no way that wasn’t on purpose. Furious at Isobu but with no time to get into it, Rin picked up Chibi in a now-familiar movement and leaped out of the way.

On the branch, with a confused and frightened child in her arms, Rin thought, enraged: _‘You said_ _left_ _.’_

 **‘Did I? I meant** **_my_ ** **left.’**

_‘We’re in the same body!’_

**‘My bad, I guess I’m not as experienced with direction on land. There’s very little gravity in the ocean, don’t you know? Very difficult to tell left from right.’**

He didn’t sound sincere. And wasn’t. He could have gotten Chibi hurt — which, of course, was his intention. _‘We’re talking about this,’_ Rin hissed, angrier with him than she had been in a while. But Isobu wasn’t cruel — he _wasn’t_ , and this kind of behavior was beneath him. It couldn’t happen again. If Chibi was staying with her, he would be under _both_ their protection.

Whether that big baby liked it or not.

Rin’s lips thinned with displeasure. She placed Chibi down on the thick branch: high enough to keep him out of danger while she handled the confrontation. “Keep quiet,” she whispered, directing his hands to hold the branch and keep him steady. “I’ll get you when I’m done.”

Chibi was pale-faced and sweating. He nodded once, imperceptibly.

Good enough for her.

It wasn’t her usual modus operandi to drop into the middle of a cluster; Rin preferred to keep to the shadows, wait until night fell, and attack when her enemy’s defenses were down. Jumping into the middle of an ambush by bandits wasn’t historically Rin’s cup of tea.

Children really did change things.

It was a group of four, armed with poorly-handled weapons. She would bet they’d plucked a pack from the corpse of a shinobi. Probably Suna. If there ever was a village stupid enough to leave their dead out to rot, it was Suna.

She fell onto the head of one — a bald man wearing a dirty bandana — and cracked his skull against the ground, feeling him go limp beneath her. “If we looked like easy targets,” she told the gathering apologetically, “that wasn’t my intention. Unintentional deception… awkward.”

Three left. A pair of twins, one with a scar through his eyebrow, and the last with heterochromia. Well, hopefully that didn’t turn out to be a dojutsu. Not that she’d ever heard of one that caused heterochromia. Just — you never knew, right?

Eyebrow-Scar was trigger happy, firing off another shuriken. Rin caught it: there had been an attempt to sharpen it, but it was tricky when you didn’t know how. “Careful, you could hurt someone with these. Like this—”

Enforcing it with chakra, Rin returned the projectile, aiming for the bicep and hitting the shoulder.

 **‘Your aim sucks,’** Isobu groaned.

_‘I’m not talking to you, Isobu-kun.’_

**‘Now who’s being immature?’**

Ugh!

Eyebrow-Scar’s twin surged forward with a tanto, seeking vengeance. Rin redirected him to Heterochromia with chakra strings, letting them fight and occupy themselves. “Taku, man, cut it out!”

“I’m — not — doing — anything!”

“Drop your sword!”

“I — can’t — control — my — body — can — you — stop — punching — me!”

“No, you have a _sword_!”

Eyebrow-Scar ripped the shuriken from his shoulder, tears in his eyes. “I’ll get you for that,” He swore, equipping himself with multiple small blades. She wondered about their use. Figured it out when he threw them at her. Oh, little kunai. “Release my brother, witch!”

“Yeah,” yelled his twin, “Release — me! Bora — dodge!”

Heterochromia didn’t dodge, crying out in pain at the new wound on his cheek. “Ow!”

The twin continued to waste energy fighting Rin’s hold, which was secure and difficult to fight when you didn’t have much chakra. Such as these men… boys, really. “Sorry — I — sharpened — it — last — night.”

“I noticed!”

“This is so sad,” Rin muttered. Begrudgingly, Isobu was amused, and it was affecting her own emotions. “Why did you guys attack me in the first place?”

Eyebrow-Scar snarled. “It’s none of your business! Stand there and let us rob you!”

“I don’t want to?” Rin released the twin abruptly, leaving him to fall forward, sending him and Heterochromia into the dirt. With a shunshin, she was behind Eyebrow-Scar. Less amused, she told him: “You could have hurt the boy with me, you know. That isn’t nice.”

She put her fingers to his temples and sent him to sleep. Heterochromia and the Twin had scrambled to their feet by then, and were pointed in her direction with their weapons out: a tanto and a pair of golden knuckle-busters.

“Just because you’re bandits doesn’t mean you have to be amoral,” Rin lectured them. “The next time you see a young woman travelling with a little kid, how about you walk away?”

“As if we’d let you walk away after the humiliation you caused me!” The Twin spat, waving his recently sharpened tanto around. “I’m gonna avenge my brother if it’s the last thing I do!”

“It might be,” said Rin, honestly.

Heterochromia made a face, stopping his friend’s charge with an arm. “What, really? You’d kill us?”

“Yes, though I’d rather it didn’t come to that.” She pointed at the sleeping man. “And what do you mean by ‘avenge’? He’s alive.”

“He is?”

“I’m a pacifist.”

“You mean a coward,” said the Twin, eyeing his brother with renewed interest. He seemed less angry when he heard the man snuffle. “What about Ken?” At Rin’s confusion, he gestured at the man she’d taken down by dropping on him. “We heard his skull crack—”

“I _can_ heal him, it’s just a concussion. Look, I don’t have anything against you guys. I just don’t like that you threw shuriken at the kid when I was right there.”

Twin opened his mouth wide, only for a pained wheeze to escape him when Heterochromia elbowed him hastily. “You would have preferred if we attacked _you_?”

Baffled, Rin replied, “He is _five._ ”

Both men winced. “Well, it… yeah, alright. Obviously, there’s been a misunderstanding. We thought you weren’t… whatever it is you are. That was our mistake. We’ve lived and learned. If you let us go, we promise to not do this ever again.”

“Rob people?”

“Rob _you_.”

“That’s fair. It would be smart if you avoided attacking shinobi in general,” said Rin. “We’re jumpy.”

“A shinobi?” repeated Heterochromia, choked up. “ _Damn_.”

“I _know_. Close one, huh?” Rin clasped her hands together, sensing an end to the confrontation. “Do you want me to heal your friend? This one” — she waved at Eyebrow-Scar — “will wake up naturally, so you don’t need to worry so much.”

The Twin crossed his arms sullenly. Heterochromia looked fascinated, stepping aside with a wave of his arms. “Please, if you could. We don’t have a first aid kit.”

“You should invest in one,” Rin crouched near the man and checked his condition. As she thought, nothing serious. A mild concussion that wouldn’t leave brain damage. Although, he had suffered a few head injuries as it was. Anymore would be trouble. Rin conveyed as much.

Heterochromia groaned. “Yeah, Ken likes to charge in without thinking. Gets him in some trouble. No more head injuries, you say?”

“Preferably.” Rin healed the fracture and sent a dose of sedative chakra through his system. “Alright, done! He’ll wake up naturally, like your brother. Make sure he eats something when does. And water! He’ll be dizzy!”

“Understood,” Heterochromia looked disheartened by the idea of hauling two grown men back to his camp, wherever it happened to be. Then he perked up. “Hey, you’re a medic, right? Shinobi? But you aren’t wearing a headband, so you must be one of them nukenin.”

“Well… I mean, yeah?”

“No employment?” Heterochromia waggled his eyebrows. “Cause I happen to know a bandit gang that’s in desperate need of a doctor and you more than qualify for the position—”

Oho, definitely not.

“No way,” Rin snorted, sending a glance to the tree she’d hidden Chibi in. His wide eyes peered through the darkness. Safe. “I’m a mercenary. I like it that way. But you fellas aren’t too bad, so here.”

She gave Heterochromia a piece of paper that had リン written on it.

Heterochromia squinted. “Rin?”

“That’s me! Put some chakra into that if you ever need me,” Rin smiled. “I’ll try find you. Don’t use it for something silly. I’ll know. I won’t be impressed.”

Heterochromia shared a loaded look with the Twin, before giving Rin a determined, albeit confused, nod. “Will do. Uh, thanks, Rin-san. For not… you know, killing us.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Rin leaped into the tree, where Chibi was sitting in pure astonishment. “Ready to carry on? I want to reach the house before dinner.”

Chibi made a breathless noise that she knew to mean he was confused and slightly overwhelmed. He lifted his arms, allowing her to carry him. Heterochromia was waiting for her on the road, but the Twin was sitting by Eyebrow-Scar’s head, wiggling his finger around in his ear. Gross. She was glad she never had a brother.

As soon as Heterochromia saw the boy in her arms, he delivered a shallow bow. “I apologize for throwing shuriken at you, young man. Your mother has convinced me that it isn’t nice.”

Chibi scrunched his face up and said, with actual words: “She’s not my mom.”

Words?!

Rin stopped breathing. Heterochromia said, “Uh, sorry, I meant your sister. Hope you didn’t get hurt.”

Chibi shook his head. That was that. Heterochromia bowed to Rin, then shuffled over to collect his unconscious friends. Rin, still in complete shock at the sound of Chibi’s voice again ( _much_ different when it was steady), stood there. Processing. It was taking a while.

Until Chibi tugged on her hand. “Are we going?”

_‘By the Sage, more?!’_

“Yup.” Rin agreed numbly. “Say goodbye, Chibi.”

“Haku.”

Robotically, Rin moved her eyes to him. She didn’t know what to think. He was staring up at her, blushing. Oh, that was adorable. “Haku,” she corrected, rewarded with a small, bashful smile. “Say goodbye.”

“Bye.” He called to the bandits, voice hardly louder than a whisper. The Twin glared. Heterochromia waved. Polite guy. “Let’s go.”

Oh, that wasn’t going to lose its shine anytime soon.

**‘Breathe, idiot.’**

The shock of Isobu’s voice did get her to inhale. Or maybe that was the anger. She hadn’t forgotten about the impending lecture she would be delivering onto him. _‘You and I are going to talk about when it is appropriate to endanger the lives of chilren, Isobu-kun. The answer is: NEVER.’_

 **‘Don’t wanna.’** Isobu sniffed. **‘Go back to your brat already,’**

_‘I will.’_

**‘Fine.’**

_‘Fine!’_

He scoffed. Rin tossed her head and held onto Chi— _Haku’s_ hand. He looked ready to move on. There was nothing keeping them there. He was _speaking_ again, which implied a certain level of comfort and safety around her. Good. At least he trusted her enough.

It would make the visit much less complicated now that she knew his name.


End file.
